Buchi Emecheta

Buchi Emecheta

Buchi Emecheta the author of numerous novels passed away in London, UK on January 25th 2017. Tributes from all over the African literary community have been shared on social media.

Florence Onyebuchi “Buchi” Emecheta OBE (21 July 1944 – 25 January 2017) was a Nigerian novelist, based in Britain since 1960,[1] who had also written plays and autobiography, as well as for children. She was the author of more than 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education won her considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005.

Emecheta once described her stories as “stories of the world… [where] … women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.” She has been characterised as “the first successful black woman novelist living in Britain after 1948”.

Here are some tributes from some of her fans from all over the continent and beyond.

From Facebook;

In her quiet but significant way, Buchi Emecheta was a visionary writer, an irrepressible spirit, and a creative pioneer. I had the fortune of sharing the stage with her in London in 2000, shortly after the publication of my first novel. Now she has taken her art to heaven’s gate!

Okey Ndibe,
Author

Buchi Emecheta travels, as large in absence as she was in presence. Akika Oma…

Chuma Nwokolo,
Author

Just heard that the Nigerian author Buchi Emecheta has died. She was the first Nigerian author I read as a child, at an age when I had given zero thought to the experience of women straddling traditional and post-colonial society. Can’t remember for the life of me what the title of the book was, but the story always stuck with me. Great woman. Rest In Peace.

Noo Saro-Wiwa,
Author

Ah one of my all time favourite books.RIP Buchi Emecheta

Thandiswa Mazwai,
Musician.

Can it be true? Buchi Emecheta has passed? RIP Mother Nigeria

Julie Iromuanya
Etisalat Prize for Literature 2016 shortlistee

Buchi Emecheta’s books were one of the first books I read as an impressionable girl growing up in Lagos and what a joy they were. Thank you for being a positive role model. Sun re o.

・・・

Rest In Peace Florence Onyebuchi Emecheta (1944 – 2017)

Nike Campbell-Fatoki,
Author

From Twitter

Lola Shoneyin