Pauline Ada Uwakweh | |
---|---|
Born | Uvuru in Aboh-Mbaise, Imo State |
Nationality | Nigerian |
Education | Owerri Girls Secondary School, University of Port Harcourt, University of Calabar and Temple University |
Occupation(s) | writer and academic |
Pauline Ada Uwakweh [1] is a Nigerian writer and academic. Writing as Pauline Onwubiko, she published Running for Cover (1988), a children's novel giving a child's-eye view of the Nigerian civil war. [2] She is a Professor of Literature in the English Department at North Carolina A&T State University. [3] Her specialism is African writing and literature from the African diaspora, particularly women's writing.
She earned her doctorate degree from Temple University, her M.A from the University of Calabar, and her B.A. from the University of Port Harcourt. Her specialization is in postcolonial African and African Diaspora women’s literature.
Uwakweh is co-author of the book, Engaging the Diaspora: Migration and African Families (2013), and editor of African Women Under Fire: Literary Discourses in War and Conflict (2017). Her works appear in critical books and journals of African literature. She is a Fellow of the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program.
Pauline Onwubiko was born in Uvuru, Aboh-Mbaise, Imo State. [4] She attended Owerri Girls Secondary School and in 1982 she graduated with a BA in literature from the University of Port Harcourt. She gained a master's in English and literary studies from the University of Calabar, [2] and a PhD from Temple University. [3] Before moving to North Carolina A&T, she taught in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Cincinnati and the Department of English and Literary Studies at the University of Calabar. [5] She was a Carnegie African Diaspora Fellow in 2016. [6]
Uwakweh has written literary criticism on a range of writers, including Toni Morrison, Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta, Nawal El-Saadawi, Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Cyprian Ekwensi, Ama Ata Aidoo, Chimamanda Adichie and Goretti Kyomuhendo. She co-edited and introduced a 2013 collection on immigration and African families. [7] Her own chapter looked at marriage, motherhood and immigration in the writing of Buchi Emecheta and Chimamanda Adichie. [8] In 2017 she edited and introduced a collection on war and African women, [9] in which her own contribution considered Grace Akallo's memoir, Girl Soldier, and Susan Minot's novel Thirty Girls. [10]
Buchi Emecheta was a Nigerian writer who wrote novels, plays, autobiography, and children's book. She is known for her first novel, Second Class Citizen (1974). Others includes, The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Emecheta has been characterized as "the first successful black woman novelist living in Britain after 1948".
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian author who is regarded as a central figure in postcolonial feminist literature. She is the author of the award-winning novels Purple Hibiscus (2003), Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) and Americanah (2013). Her other works include the book essays We Should All Be Feminists (2014); Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (2017); a memoir tribute to her father, Notes on Grief (2021); and a children's book, Mama's Sleeping Scarf (2023).
Chief Sir Ernest Emenyonu is a Nigerian academic, who is an African literature critic and professor. He was formerly head of the department of English and Literary Studies, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calabar, in that order, through the 1980s and 1990s. He was also Provost of Alvan Ikoku College of Education, now Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education, Owerri, in Imo state, Nigeria (1992–1995).
The Bride Price is a 1976 novel by Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta. It concerns, in part, the problems of women in post-colonial Nigeria. The author dedicated this novel to her mother, Alice Ogbanje Emecheta.
Half of a Yellow Sun is a novel by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Published in 2006 by 4th Estate in London, the novel tells the story of the Biafran War through the perspective of the characters Olanna, Ugwu, and Richard.
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".
The Joys of Motherhood is a novel written by Buchi Emecheta. It was first published in London, UK, by Allison & Busby in 1979 and was first published in Heinemann's African Writers Series in 1980 and reprinted in 1982, 2004, 2008. The basis of the novel is the "necessity for a woman to be fertile, and above all to give birth to sons". It tells the tragic story of Nnu-Ego, daughter of Nwokocha Agbadi and Ona, who had a bad fate with childbearing. This novel explores the life of a Nigerian woman, Nnu Ego. Nnu's life centres on her children and through them, she gains the respect of her community. Traditional tribal values and customs begin to shift with increasing colonial presence and influence, pushing Ego to challenge accepted notions of "mother", "wife", and "woman". Through Nnu Ego's journey, Emecheta forces her readers to consider the dilemmas associated with adopting new ideas and practices against the inclination to cleave to tradition. In this novel, Emecheta reveals and celebrates the pleasures derived from fulfilling responsibilities related to family matters in child-bearing, mothering, and nurturing activities among women. However, the author additionally highlights how the "joys of motherhood" also include anxiety, obligation, and pain.
Americanah is a 2013 novel by the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, for which Adichie won the 2013 U.S. National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Americanah tells the story of a young Nigerian woman, Ifemelu, who immigrates to the United States to attend university. The novel traces Ifemelu's life in both countries, threaded by her love story with high school classmate Obinze. It was Adichie's third novel, published on May 14, 2013, by Alfred A. Knopf.
Ifeoma Mokwugo Okoyeborn on 21st December is a Nigerian novelist. She has been referred to by fans as "the most important female novelist from Nigeria after Flora Nwapa and Buchi Emecheta," according to Oyekan Owomoyela. She was born in Anambra State in Eastern Region, Nigeria. She went to school at St. Monica's College in Ogbunike to receive a teaching certificate in 1959. She then graduated from the University of Nigeria in Nsukka to earn a Bachelor of Arts honours degree in English in 1977. She wrote novels including Behind the Clouds, children's novels and short stories, such as The Village Boy and Eme Goes to School.
Obioma Paul Iwuanyanwu known mononymously as Obiwu, is a Nigerian-American writer and professor. He is a survivor of the Igbo genocide in Nigeria (1966–1970), and teaches World Literature and Critical Theory in the Humanities Department at Central State University.
Victor Ehikhamenor is a Nigerian visual artist, writer, and photographer known for his expansive works that engage with multinational cultural heritage and postcolonial socioeconomics of contemporary black lives. In 2017, he was selected to represent Nigeria at the Venice Biennale, the first time Nigeria would be represented in the event. His work has been described as representing "a symbol of resistance" to colonialism.
The Slave Girl is a 1977 novel by Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta that was published in the UK by Allison and Busby and in the US by George Braziller. It won the Jock Campbell Award from the New Statesman in 1978. The novel was Emecheta's fourth book; it was dedicated to her editor Margaret Busby.
Ada Uzoamaka Azodo is a literary scholar. She is Associate Faculty in the Humanities, and Adjunct Professor of African, African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University Northwest.
Yejide Kilanko is a Nigerian Canadian fiction writer and social worker. She is known for addressing violence against women in her work. Her debut novel, Daughters Who Walk This Path, was a Canadian fiction bestseller in 2012.
In the Ditch is a 1972 novel written by Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta. It was first published on New Statesman as a regular column then published in 1972 by Allison & Busby in London, where her editor was Margaret Busby.
The Third Generation of Nigeria Writers is an emerging phase of Nigerian literature, in which there is a major shift in both the method of publishing and the themes explored. This set of writers are known for writing post-independence novels and poems. This generation is believed to be influenced by the western world, politics and the preceding generation of Mbari Club writers, Flora Nwapa and Buchi Emecheta. The emergence of the third generation of Nigerian writers has changed the publishing sector with a resurgence of new publishing firms such as Kachifo Limited, Parrésia Publishers, Cassava Republic Press and Farafina Books. These new writers create new genres and methods that deal with racism, class, abuse and violence.
Florence Onyebuchi Orabueze is a poet, writer and a Nigerian professor of English and literary studies. She was a former director of the Institute of African studies of the institution, the founder of the Grace Uzoma Okonkwo Foundation and a member of Nigerian Academy of Letters.