![]() Cover of the UK 1st edition | |
Author | Buchi Emecheta |
---|---|
Cover artist | Taiwo Jegede |
Language | English |
Genre | Historical fiction |
Published | 1977 (hardback) |
Publisher | Allison and Busby |
Publication place | United Kingdom |
Pages | 179 |
Awards | Jock Campbell Award from the New Statesman |
Preceded by | The Bride Price |
Followed by | The Joys of Motherhood |
The Slave Girl is a 1977 novel by Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta [1] 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. [2] [3] The novel was Emecheta's fourth book; it was dedicated to her editor Margaret Busby. [4]
The Slave Girl was reissued in 2018 by Omenala Press. [5]
The Slave Girl is set in colonial Nigeria, in the early 1900s, and tells the story of Ogbanje Ojebeta who, following the death of her parents is sold into domestic slavery. "She finds solace among her fellow slaves but learns the painful lessons of what it means to be owned by another. As she grows into a woman she longs for freedom and for a family of her own. She realizes that she must ultimately decide her own destiny, and when the opportunity arises, makes a choice that we as modern readers might find surprising." [5]
Favourable reviews of the novel appeared in publications including the New Statesman – which said: "Buchi Emecheta generates a fine sympathy with human distress; this loving novel makes a telling indictment of pagan and Christian inhumanity to women" – and the Sunday Telegraph : "Ms. Emecheta once again creates an authentic character and scene and... explains the network of customs from the past which have contributed to present attitudes." [5] Writing in The Guardian, Carol Dix observed that the novel "pales a lot of academic feminist writing into insignificance....It makes you wish more writers came from the non-white-educated-middle-classes; which is something we should be trying to encourage." [6] According to Juliana Ogunseiju's review for Africa Book Club: "It is one of the very best pre-colonial African books and is heartily recommended." [7] Anita Kern in World Literature Today stated: "Ojebeta is a welcome addition to the still too small gallery of Nigerian heroines." [8]
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".
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Allison & Busby is a publishing house based in London established by Clive Allison and Margaret Busby in 1967. The company has built up a reputation as a leading independent publisher.
Ferdinand Dennis is a writer, broadcaster, journalist and lecturer, who is Jamaican by birth but at the age of eight moved to England, where his parents had migrated in the late 1950s. Dr James Procter notes: "Perhaps as a result of his Caribbean background, Dennis is a writer ultimately more concerned with routes than roots. This is foregrounded in much of his fictional work, notably his most recent and ambitious novel to date, Duppy Conqueror (1998), a novel which moves from 1930s Jamaica to postwar London and Liverpool, to Africa. Similarly, Dennis' non-fiction centres on journeying rather than arrival, from Behind the Frontlines: Journey into Afro-Britain (1988) to Voices of the Crossing: The Impact of Britain on Writers from Asia, the Caribbean and Africa (2000)."
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.
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. Her second novel, Not With Silver, was published in 2007.
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.
Second Class Citizen is a 1974 novel by Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta. It was published in London by Allison and Busby and subsequently in US in 1975 by George Braziller. Often described as a semi-autibiography, it entails the story of Adah, the major book character, Nigerian woman who overcomes strict tribal domination of women and countless setbacks to achieve an independent life for herself and her children. She moved from Nigeria to London, where she faced hard living conditions and a violent marriage to Francis. The novel explores the themes of gender and marriage, religion and immigration.
Edwige-Renée Dro is a writer, translator and literary activist from Côte d'Ivoire. She is co-founder of the literature collective Abidjan Lit.
Pauline Ada Uwakweh 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. She is a Professor of Literature in the English Department at North Carolina A&T State University. Her specialism is African writing and literature from the African diaspora, particularly women's writing.
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.
Double Yoke is a 1982 novel written by Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta. It was published in the United States on 2 September 1982, by George Braziller.
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 New Tribe is a 2000 novel written by Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta. It was first published by Allison & Busby, and republished by Heinemann as part of the African Writers Series.
Destination Biafra is a 1982 novel by Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta, first published in London by Allison & Busby. It is considered to be Emecheta's personal account of the Biafra War. Destination Biafra was republished in paperback on 1 March 1994 by Heinemann Educational Books as part of the African Writers Series.
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.