Buchi Emecheta: Nigerian author who championed girls dies aged 72

Nigerian author Buchi Emecheta, whose works 
included The Joy of Motherhood, Second-Class 
Citizen and The Bride Price, has died at her home in 
London at the age of 72.

Emecheta's books were on the national curricula of 
several African countries.

She was known for championing women and girls
 in her writing, though famously rejected description
 as a feminist.

"I work toward the liberation of women but I'm not feminist.

 I'm just a woman," she said.

The topics she covered in her writing included child 
marriage, life as a single mother, abuse of women and 
racism in the UK and elsewhere.

"Black women all over the world should re-unite 
and re-examine the way history has portrayed us,
" she said.


The president of the Association of Nigerian Authors,
 Delta Abdullahi, said: "We have lost a rare gem in 
this field. 

Her works would forever live to speak for her.

"It is a sad loss to our circle. She was known for
 championing the female gender and we would forever
 miss her."

Lagos-born Emecheta had moved to the UK in 1960, 
working as a librarian and becoming a student at
 London University, where she read sociology. She
 later worked as a community worker in London for
 several years.

She left her husband when he refused to read her first 
novel and burnt the manuscript, a World Service series
 on women writer reported .

The book, In the Ditch, was eventually published in 1972.
 That and Second-Class Citizen, which followed in 1974, 
were fictionalised portraits of a young Nigerian woman struggling to bring up children in London.

Later, she wrote about civil conflict in Nigeria and the experience of motherhood in a changing Ibo society.

An assessment of her writing, published by the
 British Council , says: "The female protagonists of 
Emecheta's fiction challenge the masculinist assumption
 that they should be defined as domestic properties 
whose value resides in their ability to beat children and 
in their willingness to remain confined at home.


"Initiative and determination become the distinguishing 
marks of Emecheta's women. They are resourceful 
and turn Advert conditions into their triumph."