Buchi Emecheta, Nigerian novelist, Died at 72

Florence Onyebuchi “Buchi” Emecheta was born on July 21, 1944, and died on January 25, 2017.

She was a Nigerian novelist, based in Britain since 1960,

Buchi had also written plays and autobiography, as well as for children.

Emecheta 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).

Emecheta’s themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education won her considerable critical acclaim and honors, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005.

She once described her stories as “stories of the world, women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.”

Emecheta has been characterized as “the first successful black woman novelist living in Britain after 1948”.

She died in London.

Buchi Emecheta passed away at 72 years old.