Flora Nwapa: The First Lady of African literature lives on

By Lizi Ben-Iheanacho

THIS biography, This Book Must be Written (Kraft Books Ltd, 2024; Ibadan) by Ejine Olga Nzeribe, is informed by and dedicated to the memory of Flora Nwapa, a woman of many firsts. Prominent among her trailblazing feats is the fact that she is the departure point for female writing in Africa. The publication of her novel, Efuru, in 1966 by Heinemann African Writers Series (#26) secured her the position of the first woman to be published in English language on the continent. When in 1977 she established Tana Press Limited and Flora Nwapa Books Limited, her investment in creative writing and book production expanded her frontiers and accolades. Flora Nwapa was the veritable First Lady of African Literature indeed.

The book is a tender, robust, and emotional rite of passage by Flora Nwapa’s first child and daughter, Ejine Nzeribe. It is an act of love, a final goodbye. Yet, it is an eternal document and testament that Flora Nwapa lives and would continue to so do in printed words and literary narratives. The very title of the book attests to previous efforts to immortalize Flora Nwapa; attempts which were abandoned for different reasons, all of which had to do with the overwhelming shock Flora Nwapa’s death invoked among those concerned with the idea of writing about her life. Thirty one years after therefore, the title speaks of a long delayed closure now performed for the prematurely demised stellar Flora who departed at 62 in 1993.

This Book Must Be Written is themed on presenting the essence and values of Flora Nwapa: who she is, her little-known and private life, her family and pedigree, love life, fashion and lifestyle, her career in and out of Government service. It also gives insight into some of the inspiration for her literary works. The book chronicles these to unveil Flora Nwapa’s humanity, womanity, femininity, administrative acumen, community relationships, values, ethics, and ethos. It lays bare and brings to light, the interwoven aesthetics that make up Flora Nwapa the spirit being beyond the celebrated author.

Here are some very significant points that resonate in this very important milestone:
Flora Nwapa was a player. Players take responsibility for their actions. They exercise their choice on how to respond to situations and exert their agency and accountability. Therefore, they brace themselves to the challenges and do their best even if their actions lead to failure. Consequently, Flora Nwapa faced life and lived it with a positive disposition while not shying from nor denying the downside and curves. Her joie de vivre is captured in her laughter that rang like a bell, capturing her genuineness, sparkling personality, femininity, and confidence. The picture on the book cover is so apt that one could almost hear her voice and laughter echoing through time.

Family and friends meant everything to Flora Nwapa and defined her mainstay values. She was of a pedigree that was cosmopolitan, refined, and elite. This availed her of early appreciation of the finer things of life: wine, music, art, literature, and social etiquette. She was intentional about maintaining family links and friendship networks. She was cosmopolitan and would seamlessly hubbub with the crème de la crème of Nigeria’s post colonial society and post civil war elites with finesse yet immersed in the traditions and conventions of her Oguta homestead. She spoke the dialect fluently, bonded with her age grade members and accepted the highest Ogbuefi title for women in the community. Her sense of family was cultivated not only within her nuclear family wherein she bonded her three children from two fathers into a formidable unit, but also her extended family that qualified as a community where family and lineage were the principal elements in interpersonal relationships.

Publishing was not a bed of roses nor a mortar of mbazee. As the pioneer female printing press owner, she learned firsthand, the baptism of fire of book production, marketing, and distribution in Nigeria. Apart from the tedium and expense, Flora Nwapa was confronted with broken promises from schools that failed to follow through orders as well as refusal to remit payments for delivery. Coming from a lineage of invincible, indomitable women and accomplished wealth creators and entrepreneurs, she took to selling her books at fairs, conventions, and literary events. She also opted for publishing abroad to cut expenses.

Love was a little bit hard on Flora Nwapa. The love of her teenage years, Gogo Chu Nzeribe, just would not commit and do right by her by paying her bride price, even after they had a love child, the author. Her parents would not acquiesce to a marriage proposal from Bill Compton, an Irish man, fearing distance would steal away their beloved child. Her marriage to Gogo Nwakuche broke the norm as she was older than him. Despite two children for him (a girl and a boy) he went full throttle into polygamy, claiming he wanted a quiver-full of children. Marriage was to be one of the greatest downsides of her life. Though she did not like polygamy, “Flora Nwapa forged on, continuing with her publishing, traveling for conferences and book fairs and living her life as best as could.” She stayed on for the love of her children, to give them a sense of family and uninterrupted access to her motherly care.

Like most women, Flora Nwapa was vain about her physical appearance. “As a matter of principle, the heels of her shoes were never less than six inches.” She was fashionable, stylish, the belle of many State functions she attended. Her beauty regimen favoured watching her diet, swallowing supplements and vitamins for hair and nail growth, and a generous application of Elizabeth Arden’s ‘Visible Difference’ face cream. She was an art collector who loved to dance to both classical music and the traditional music of her Oguta homeland. An avid conversationist, her love for adventure was unmatched. She would often engage in road trips within Nigeria as well as indulge in international travels, her children in tow. Flora Nwapa had a consuming passion to learn about people of different cultures, some of whom became characters in her writing.

As contribution to the Popular Literature genre through biography of women of substance in Nigeria, the title of the book under review is reminiscent of It Can Now Be Told: Dadasare Abdullahi, the autobiography of the first female writer, educationist, journalist, and health officer in colonial Northern Nigeria. The autobiography was delayed and published posthumously when it was felt ‘safe’ to discuss publicly, the incredible story of the kidnapped eleven year old Fulani girl trapped in patriarchal oppression by colonialists as sex slave and later, voluntary consort to Dr. Rupert East, widely regarded as the father of contemporary Hausa Literature in Nigeria.

Ejine Nzeribe’s style is lucid, direct, frank, and shorn of superfluity. Her narrative voice is revealing but never tells all. She gives the right amount as she deems necessary but leaves the reader to piece them together and draw conclusions. As a professional corporate biographer, she deployed appropriate distancing from the subject of her discourse as her mother, focusing instead on Flora Nwapa as the object of the biography. Hence, there is no overweening sentiment and unwieldy emotional murkiness drowning her marshaling of relevant points. Ejine Nzeribe achieves her ode to a very beloved mother, mentor, role model and celebrated public figure in elegant phrases and sentences that dignify and preserve the wholesomeness of the essence of Flora Nwapa.

The book, however, suffers a publisher’s flaw of missing pages (159 to 174) as well as the repetition of Chapter 4 where Chapter 7 ought to have started. Thus leading to an amputation of the story flow and chronological disjoint.

The many acts and laudable achievements, awards, and recognitions to Africa’s First Lady of Letters are faithfully documented in this book that has now been written. I heartily commend it to each and all with interest in books, literature, and the sociology of it.

* Dr. Ben-Iheanacho is a writer and literary critic