Nigeria has produced a good number of female authors, who are making us proud both in the national and international sphere. In 2007, Nigerian-born author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book ” Half of a yellow sun” was voted the best book to have won the Women’s Prize of Fiction” in its 25 years of history. Their Male counterparts arrived in the literary space much earlier than their female counterparts due to cultural barriers placed on women. Women were usually taught how to be good wives and mothers to their children, it was seen as a waste to educate a female child, as they were to be another man’s property.
Flora Nwapa was Nigeria’s and Africa’s first female novelist, her book “Efuru” was published in 1966, and other ladies like Buchi Emencheta, Zaynab Alkali, Mabel Segun, and several others followed suit. Women in Nigeria started writing to expose and correct certain themes plaguing women in Nigeria. They spoke against female circumcision, gender inequality, and cultural practices that were harmful to females and encouraged the need for females to be educated.
Zaynab Alkali in her novel “stillborn” discussed how the dreams of several women never materialized due to cultural barriers placed on women, which made most women forfeit their dreams and fantasize about marriage, which connotatively translates them to be stillborn. In Buchi Emencheta’s “Joys of Motherhood” Buchi was able to represent the joys and pain and the expectation placed on African women from a young age, it represents an important part of feminist literature which shows the experience of Motherhood in patriarchal societies.
Chimamanda’s novel “Purple Hibiscus” shows how Beatrice the wife of Eugene was oppressed by Eugene himself until she later got freedom by poisoning her husband’s tea which ended the marriage. Contemporary writers like Chimamanda, Chinelo Okparanta, Kaine Agary, Oyinkan Braithwaite, and several others have been able to tell stories through their works that align with Feminism.
Female writers have helped spread the concept of Feminism through their works and have taught women to stand up for themselves and speak against the strict patriarchal system of the society. These women have championed the concept of Feminism and have spoken against several cultural barriers placed against women.
