Mabel Segun | |
---|---|
Born | 1930 (age 93–94) |
Nationality | Nigerian |
Education | University of Ibadan |
Occupations |
|
Notable work | My Father's Daughter (1965) |
Awards | Nigeria Prize for Literature |
Mabel Segun, NNOM (born 1930) is a Nigerian poet, playwright and writer of short stories and children's books. She has also been a teacher, broadcaster, and a sportswoman. [1]
Born in Ondo City, Nigeria, she had her secondary school education at CMS Girls' School Lagos. She attended the University of Ibadan, graduating in 1953 with a BA degree in English, Latin and History. She taught these subjects in Nigerian schools, and later became Head of the Department of English and Social Studies and Vice-Principal at the National Technical Teachers' College, Yaba (now Yaba College of Technology).
Her first book, My Father's Daughter, published in 1965, has been widely used as a literature text in schools all over the world, and her books have been translated into German, Danish, Norwegian and Greek. [1] Her work is included in the anthology Daughters of Africa (1992). [2]
Segun has championed children's literature in Nigeria through the Children's Literature Association of Nigeria, which she founded in 1978, and the Children's Documentation and Research Centre, which she set up in 1990 in Ibadan. She is also a fellow of the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany. [3]
She was a founding member of the Association of Nigerian Authors, established by Chinua Achebe in 1981. [4] [5] [6] [7]
As a broadcaster, Segun won the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation 1977 Artiste of the Year award. [2]
In 2009, she received the Nigerian National Order of Merit Award (NNOM) for lifetime achievements. [8]
In 2015, the Society of Young Nigerian Writers under the leadership of Wole Adedoyin founded the Mabel Segun Literary Society, aimed at promoting and reading the works of Mabel Segun. [9]
In 2007, Segun was awarded the LNG Nigeria Prize for Literature. [1]
Chief Cyprian Odiatu Duaka Ekwensi was a Nigerian author of novels, short stories, and children's books.
Nnedimma Nkemdili "Nnedi" Okorafor is a Nigerian American writer of science fiction and fantasy for both children and adults. She is best known for her Binti Series and her novels Who Fears Death, Zahrah the Windseeker, Akata Witch, Akata Warrior, Lagoon and Remote Control. She has also written for comics and film.
Niyi Osundare is a Nigerian poet, dramatist, linguist, and literary critic. Born on March 12, 1947, in Ikere-Ekiti, Nigeria, his poetry is influenced by the oral poetry of his Yoruba culture, which he hybridizes with other poetic traditions of the world, including African-American, Latin American, Asian, and European.
Chika Nina Unigwe is a Nigerian-born Igbo author who writes in English and Dutch. In April 2014, she was selected for the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define future trends in African literature. Previously based in Belgium, she now lives in the United States.
Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa, was a Nigerian author who has been called the mother of modern African Literature. She was the forerunner to a generation of African women writers, and the first African woman novelist to be published in the English language in Britain. She achieved international recognition with her first novel Efuru, published in 1966 by Heinemann Educational Books. While never considering herself a feminist, she was best known for recreating life and traditions from an Igbo woman's viewpoint.
Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike OFR, NNOM was a Nigerian monarch, academic and writer known for a mixture of lampoon, humour and satire. He owed a little bit of his style to his Igbo cultural upbringing. He studied history, English and Religious Studies at the University of Ibadan and earned a master's degree at Stanford University. Among many of the first generation of Nigerian writers, he was popular as the author of Expo '77, a critical look at academic examination abuses in West Africa. Ike was a former registrar of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).
Omolara Ogundipe-Leslie, also known as Molara Ogundipe, was a Nigerian poet, critic, editor, feminist and activist. Considered one of the foremost writers on African feminism, gender studies and literary theory, she was a social critic who came to be recognized as a viable authority on African women among black feminists and feminists in general. She contributed the piece "Not Spinning on the Axis of Maleness" to the 1984 anthology Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology, edited by Robin Morgan. She is most celebrated for coining the term STIWA or Social Transformation in Africa Including Women.
Tanure Ojaide is a Nigerian poet and academic. As a writer, he is noted for his unique stylistic vision and for his intense criticism of imperialism, religion, and other issues. He is regarded as a socio-political and an ecocentric poet. He won the 2018 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa with his collection Songs of Myself: A Quartet (2017).
The Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) is a non-profit organization that promotes Nigerian literature. It represents Nigerian creative writers at home and abroad. It was founded in 1981 by Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe as its president. The immediate past President is Alhaji Denja Abdullahi. The incumbent president is Camilus Ukah and the Vice President is Hajiya Farida Mohammed.
Sarah Ladipo Manyika FRSL is a British-Nigerian writer of novels, short stories and essays and an active member of the literary community, particularly supporting and amplifying young writers and female voices. She is the author of two well-received novels, In Dependence (2009) and Like A Mule Bringing Ice Cream To The Sun (2016), as well as the non-fiction collection Between Starshine and Clay: Conversations from the African Diaspora (2022), and her writing has appeared in publications including Granta, Transition, Guernica, and OZY, and previously served as founding Books Editor of OZY. Manyika's work also features in the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.
The Thing Around Your Neck is a short-story collection by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, first published in April 2009 by Fourth Estate in the UK and by Knopf in the US. It received many positive reviews, including: "She makes storytelling seem as easy as birdsong" ; "Stunning. Like all fine storytellers, she leaves us wanting more".
Lola Shoneyin is a Nigerian poet and author who launched her debut novel, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives, in the UK in May 2010. Shoneyin has forged a reputation as an adventurous, humorous and outspoken poet, having published three volumes of poetry. Her writing delves into themes related to female sexuality and the difficulties of domestic life in Africa. In April 2014 she was named on the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define trends in African literature. Lola won the PEN Award in America as well as the Ken Saro-Wiwa Award for prose in Nigeria. She was also on the list for the Orange Prize in the UK for her debut novel, The Secret of Baba Segi's Wives, in 2010. She lives in Lagos, Nigeria, where she runs the annual Aké Arts and Book Festival. In 2017, she was named African Literary Person of the Year by Brittle Paper.
Yaba Badoe is a Ghanaian-British documentary filmmaker, journalist and author.
Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the Present is a compilation of orature and literature by more than 200 women from Africa and the African diaspora, edited and introduced by Margaret Busby, who compared the process of assembling the volume to "trying to catch a flowing river in a calabash".
Black Orpheus was a Nigeria-based literary journal founded in 1957 by German expatriate editor and scholar Ulli Beier that has been described as "a powerful catalyst for artistic awakening throughout West Africa". Its name derived from a 1948 essay by Jean-Paul Sartre, "Orphée Noir", published as a preface to Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache, edited by Léopold Sédar Senghor. Beier wrote in an editorial statement in the inaugural volume that "it is still possible for a Nigerian child to leave a secondary school with a thorough knowledge of English literature, but without even having heard of Léopold Sédar Senghor or Aimé Césaire", so Black Orpheus became a platform for Francophone as well as Anglophone writers.
The Mbari Club was a centre for cultural activity by African writers, artists and musicians that was founded in Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1961 by Ulli Beier, with the involvement of a group of young writers including Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe. Mbari, an Igbo concept related to "creation", was suggested as the name by Achebe. Among other Mbari members were Christopher Okigbo, J. P. Clark and South African writer Ezekiel Mphahlele, Frances Ademola, Demas Nwoko, Mabel Segun, Uche Okeke, Arthur Nortje and Bruce Onobrakpeya.
Felicia Adetokun Omolara Ogunsheye is the first female professor in Nigeria. She was a professor of library and information science at the University of Ibadan.
Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo is a Nigerian author and educator, whose published work includes novels, poetry, short stories, books for children, essays and journalism. She is the winner of several awards in Nigeria, including the Nigeria Prize for Literature.
Mabel Itohanosa Erioyunvwen Evwierhoma is a Nigerian academic. She is Professor of Theatre Arts at the University of Abuja. She specializes in dramatic theory, criticism, gender studies and cultural studies.
I Do Not Come To You By Chance is a 2009 novel by Nigeria writer Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani. It is her debut novel which was published on May 1, 2009, by Hachette Books, an imprint of Perseus Books Group.