Simi Bedford

Last updated

Simi Bedford
BornSimi Bedford
Lagos, Nigeria
OccupationNovelist
Alma mater Durham University
Notable works Yoruba Girl Dancing (1991)
Children3

Simi Bedford is a Nigerian novelist based in Britain. Her 1991 debut book Yoruba Girl Dancing , an autobiographical novel about a young Nigerian girl who is sent to England to receive a private school education, was well reviewed on publication and was the subject of a BBC Radio 4 abridgement. [1] Her second novel, Not With Silver, was published in 2007.

Contents

Biography

Bedford was born in Lagos, Nigeria, [2] to parents who had come there from Sierra Leone. [3] Her great-grandparents were from Nigeria and were rescued from a slave ship. [4] Bedford spent her early years in Lagos, before being sent for her education to Britain, [5] where she attended boarding-school from the age of six. [6]

She read Law at Durham University, and subsequently worked in the media, including as a radio presenter and a television researcher. [6] Living in London, she married and raised three children. [5] She is now divorced from her artist husband, Martin Bedford, but they still maintain a friendly relationship, even sharing space together in a house in Devon. [7]

Writing

Bedford's debut novel Yoruba Girl Dancing is semi-autobiographical, recounting the experience of a Nigerian girl's education in Britain, [8] which Francine Prose described in a Washington Post review as: "[b]eautifully written ... at once acerbic and moving, painfully honest about the cost of emigration and adjustment." [9] A five-part abridgement of Yoruba Girl Dancing (by Margaret Busby, read by Adjoa Andoh and produced by David Hunter) was broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime in October 1991. [10] The novel is extracted in Busby's 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa . [11] [12]

Bedford's second novel, Not With Silver (2007), is historical fiction, focusing on mid-18th-century West Africa, slavery and court intrigue. [13] Drawing on its author's own ancestral history, Not With Silver is unique among books about slavery in depicting the lives of people in Africa before they were enslaved. [4] The Spectator 's reviewer concluded: "This relentlessly honest book has no false or sentimental notes, absolutely no prettifying. A black warrior facing unexpected danger is taught to imagine the worst, 'look the leopard in the eye.' Simi Bedford does just that. A brave and uncomfortable labour of love." [14]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wole Soyinka</span> Nigerian writer (born 1934)

Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka Hon. FRSL, known as Wole Soyinka, is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, for "in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence", the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sara Forbes Bonetta</span> West African princess

Sara Forbes Bonetta, otherwise known as Sally Forbes Bonetta,, was ward and goddaughter of Queen Victoria. She was a princess of the Egbado clan of the Yoruba people in West Africa, who was orphaned during a war with the nearby Kingdom of Dahomey as a child, and was later enslaved by King Ghezo of Dahomey. She was given as a "gift" to Captain Frederick E. Forbes of the British Royal Navy and became a goddaughter of Queen Victoria. She married Captain James Pinson Labulo Davies, a wealthy Lagos philanthropist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buchi Emecheta</span> Nigerian writer (1944–2017)

Florence Onyebuchi "Buchi" Emecheta was a Nigerian-born novelist, based in the UK from 1962, who also wrote plays and an autobiography, as well as works 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). Most of her early novels were published by Allison and Busby, where her editor was Margaret Busby.

Timothy Mofolorunso Aluko was a Nigerian writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nigerian literature</span> Literature of Nigerians

Nigerian literature may be roughly defined as the literary writing by citizens of the nation of Nigeria for Nigerian readers, addressing Nigerian issues. This encompasses writers in a number of languages, including not only English but Igbo, Urhobo, Yoruba, and in the northern part of the county Hausa and Nupe. More broadly, it includes British Nigerians, Nigerian Americans and other members of the African diaspora.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel O. Fagunwa</span> Nigerian author

Chief Daniel Olorunfẹmi Fágúnwà MBE, popularly known as D. O. Fágúnwà, was a Nigerian author of Yorùbá heritage who pioneered the Yorùbá language novel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sefi Atta</span> Nigerian author and playwright

Sefi Atta is a Nigerian-American novelist, short-story writer, playwright and screenwriter. Her books have been translated into many languages, radio plays have been broadcast by the BBC, and her stage plays have been performed internationally. Awards she has received include the 2006 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa and the 2009 Noma Award for Publishing in Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biyi Bandele</span> Nigerian writer and filmmaker (1967–2022)

Biyi Bandele was a Nigerian novelist, playwright and filmmaker. He was the author of several novels, beginning with The Man Who Came in From the Back of Beyond (1991), as well as writing stage plays, before turning his focus to filmmaking. His directorial debut was in 2013 with Half of a Yellow Sun, based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-Igbo sentiment</span> Ideology

Anti-Igbo sentiment encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards the Igbo people. The Igbo people make up all of south-eastern Nigeria and a part of south-south Nigeria's geopolitical zones. Igbophobia is observable in critical and hostile behaviour such as political and religious discrimination and violence towards Igbos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yoruba people</span> Ethnic group in West Africa

The Yoruba people are a West African ethnic group who mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by the Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute more than 42.6 million people in Africa, are over a million outside the continent, and bear further representation among members of the African diaspora. The vast majority of the Yoruba population is today within the country of Nigeria, where they make up 20.7% of the country's population according to Ethnologue estimations, making them one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa. Most Yoruba people speak the Yoruba language, which is the Niger-Congo language with the largest number of native or L1 speakers.

Zaynab Alkali was born into the Tura-Mazila family of Borno and Adamawa States. For secondary education, she attended Queen Elizabeth Secondary School, Ilorin. Zaynab Alkali went on to obtain both her first and second degrees from Ahmadu Bello University (ABU)/BUK, Zaria. At Bayero University Kano (BUK), she studied English to a doctorate level.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lagos Colony</span> British protectorate from 1862 to 1906

Lagos Colony was a British colonial possession centred on the port of Lagos in what is now southern Nigeria. Lagos was annexed on 6 August 1861 under the threat of force by Commander Beddingfield of HMS Prometheus who was accompanied by the Acting British Consul, William McCoskry. Oba Dosunmu of Lagos resisted the cession for 11 days while facing the threat of violence on Lagos and its people, but capitulated and signed the Lagos Treaty of Cession. Lagos was declared a colony on 5 March 1862. By 1872, Lagos was a cosmopolitan trading centre with a population over 60,000. In the aftermath of prolonged wars between the mainland Yoruba states, the colony established a protectorate over most of Yorubaland between 1890 and 1897. The protectorate was incorporated into the new Southern Nigeria Protectorate in February 1906, and Lagos became the capital of the Protectorate of Nigeria in January 1914. Since then, Lagos has grown to become the largest city in West Africa, with an estimated metropolitan population of over 9,000,000 as of 2011.

Sade Adeniran is a Nigerian novelist whose debut novel, Imagine This, won the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in Africa. Imagine This was originally self-published by the author. Based in London, she is also a filmmaker.

<i>Yoruba Girl Dancing</i> 1991 novel by Simi Bedford

Yoruba Girl Dancing is the debut novel of Nigerian author Simi Bedford, which "tackles the weighty and painful issue of the extent to which Africans, even those who are members of the privileged classes, can gain social acceptance in 'the West.'" Yoruba Girl Dancing was first published in Great Britain in 1991 and then in the United States in 1992. It is extracted in the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa.

<i>Aké: The Years of Childhood</i> 1981 memoir by Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka

Aké: The Years of Childhood is a 1981 memoir by Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Busby</span> Publisher, writer and editor (born 1944)

Margaret Yvonne Busby,, Hon. FRSL, also known as Nana Akua Ackon, is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. She was Britain's youngest and first black female book publisher when she and Clive Allison (1944–2011) co-founded the London-based publishing house Allison and Busby in the 1960s. She edited the anthology Daughters of Africa (1992), and its 2019 follow-up New Daughters of Africa. She is a recipient of the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature. In 2020 she was voted one of the "100 Great Black Britons". In 2021, she was honoured with the London Book Fair Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2023, Busby was named as president of English PEN.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simi (singer)</span> Nigerian singer (born 1988)

Simisola Bolatito Kosoko, better known by her stage name Simi, is a Nigerian singer, songwriter, and actress. She started her career as a gospel singer, releasing her debut studio album in 2008, titled Ogaju. She also played as one of the top judges in season 7 of the Nigerian idol TV show in 2022. She gained public recognition in 2014 after releasing "Tiff", a song that was nominated for Best Alternative Song at The Headies 2015. Simi signed a record deal with X3M Music in 2014, but left the label in May 2019 following the expiration of her contract. She released her second studio album Simisola on September 8, 2017. Her third studio album Omo Charlie Champagne, Vol. 1 was released to coincide with her thirty-first birthday on April 19, 2019. She launched her record label Studio Brat in June 2019.

Dame Karin Judith Barber, is a British cultural anthropologist and academic, who specialises in the Yoruba-speaking area of Nigeria. From 1999 to 2017, she was Professor of African Cultural Anthropology at the University of Birmingham. Before joining the Centre of West African Studies of the University of Birmingham, she was a lecturer at the University of Ife in Nigeria. Since 2018, she has been Centennial Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chibundu Onuzo</span> Nigerian novelist

Imachibundu Oluwadara Onuzo is a Nigerian novelist. Her first novel, The Spider King's Daughter, won a Betty Trask Award, was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Commonwealth Book Prize, and was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Etisalat Prize for Literature.

<i>Second Class Citizen</i> (novel) 1974 novel by Buchi Emecheta

Second Class Citizen is a 1974 novel by Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta, first published in London by Allison and Busby. It was subsequently published in the US by George Braziller in 1975. A poignant story of a resourceful Nigerian woman who overcomes strict tribal domination of women and countless setbacks to achieve an independent life for herself and her children, the novel is often described as semi-autobiographical. The protagonist Adah's journey from Nigeria to London – where despite atrocious living conditions and a violent marriage, she "finds refuge in her dream of becoming a writer" – follows closely Emecheta's own trajectory as an author.

References

  1. ↑ Hodapp, James, "The Proto-Afropolitan Bildungsroman: Yoruba Women, Resistance, and the Nation in Simi Bedford's Yoruba Girl Dancing", The Global South, Volume 10, Number 1, Spring 2016, pp. 130–149.
  2. ↑ Leese, Peter, Britain Since 1945: Aspects of Identity, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 50.
  3. ↑ Simi Bedford interview on Woman's Hour , BBC Radio 4, 25 July 2007. YouTube.
  4. 1 2 "Bedford's 'Complete' Slave Picture". BBC News. 3 September 2007. Retrieved 4 February 2016.
  5. 1 2 Cooper, Brenda (2011). Stories Fly: A Collection of African Fiction Written in Europe and the USA. New Africa Books. p. 60. ISBN   9780864866080.
  6. 1 2 "Simi Bedford", Black British Women Writers.
  7. ↑ Hodgkinson, Liz (20 July 2015). "Divorced? You Can Be Friends With Your Ex. I Should Know". The Telegraph . Retrieved 3 February 2016.
  8. ↑ Griswold, Wendy (2000). Bearing Witness: Readers, Writers, and the Novel in Nigeria. Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology. pp. 26–27. ISBN   978-0691058290.
  9. ↑ Prose, Francine (27 September 1992), "England through young African eyes", Washington Post.
  10. ↑ "Listings", Radio Times , Issue 3539, 23 October 1991, p. 93.
  11. ↑ Busby, Margaret (9 March 2019), "From Ayòbámi Adébáyò to Zadie Smith: meet the New Daughters of Africa", The Guardian .
  12. ↑ New Daughters of Africa contributors, Myriad Editions.
  13. ↑ Dabydeen, David (30 August 2007). "Not With Silver, by Simi Bedford". The Independent . Retrieved 3 February 2016.
  14. ↑ Durrant, Digby, "Pity the oppressed; fear the oppressed", The Spectator, 7 November 2007.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.