ECHETA, Buchi

Nigeria' s Most Prolific Female Writer by(Temiiope Ogunjinmi). Buchi Emecheta did not set out to be a great writer. When she wrote her first novel,In. the Ditch (19.72)* it was to explore the therapeutic effect of writing as occasioned by her traumatic experience as a sojourner in a foreign land (London); and the burden ofa failed marriage. These ..were to her, overwhelming emotions that she had to 'let out' by putting them to paper. This she did, and the result was a hit. After that first novel, and as if to buttress a major theme of her works that women can actually do what njen can do, Buchi's bpoks ran out of the press in quick succession. Within a decade of that first attempt to 'let out', twelve of her works proudly graced bookshelves all over the world and she came to be recognized as a major African novelist. Today, Buchi is one of the most successful, if not the richest Nigerian writer, much to the envy of her colleagues. In one interview, Emecheta revealed that she has five, personal houses in Britain. Fifty-five-year-old Buchi Emecheta was bornin. Lagos State where she had her primary and secondary school education. She attended Ladijak Primary School, Reagan Memorial Baptist School, and Methodist Girls' High School, all in Yaba, Lagos. Emecheta's roots, however, are ,traceable totherusticvillage ofIbusa- a littleIgbptownWest oftheNiger where strict Igbo customs arestill up held, especially as itconcernswomen and their roles in the society. Although she was born in Lagos, her home was surrounded by a concentration of Ibusa neighbours. This made her a part and parcel of the traditional society. As she is quick to recount, the peculiarities of the village life inspired her to write very early in life.Her grandmother, whom she adores, told her a series of moonlight stories and made her recognize story-telling as an important cultural event. In faraway London, where she migrated as a young woman to be united with her husband, she had the 'double yoke' of maintaining a home and furthering her education. But these tasks were not made easy by the serious marital turmoil that confronted her. Consequently, she separated from her husband and was granted custody of the five children from the union.This singular unfortunate incident formed the basis of many of Buchi Emecheta's novels.Indeed, people who know Buchi's story and are conversant with her works are quick to note the autobiographi cal images in them.fleadAbove Wateris in fact, her own life story clothed,in a skimpy garment offic tion-: After twenty-seven years of 1jterary feats, Emecheta is tagged Nigeria's (and Africa's) most prolific and widely read female writer. Along with other writers like Mariama Ba and Ama Ata Aidoo, Buchi is credited with bringing a sudden focus of interest on women writers who had hitherto been relegated to the background by their male counter parts and the society in general. And yet, even stronger thanthis isthe message Buchi passes across in her works, which is evident in the theme of her novels. , AlthoughotherNigerian and African women are into the business ofwriting, Buchi stands out as a significant literary icon by devoting her time to giving voice to the plight of (Nigerian) women. Through the exploration ofvariouskey issues as they relate to women, her readers are exposed to the de cay ofculture and tradition which impactnegatively on.women. She is seriously preoccupied with the question ofwomen's rights for African women and women of African descent generally, As an advor cate ofchange, her presentation ofthe .enslavement and deprivation of;the African women wjiich came during the United Nations.Deca.de of the;Woman quickly made Buchi's novels the lexicon for male domination of women in Africa, especially in the Western world. Replete in her works is her great belief in the individuality ofeverybody, man orwoman. Ac cording to her, all citizens should be able to act in freedom and dignity, while no sex should dominate the other. In The Ditch, SecondClass Citizen, The JoysofMotherhoodandHeadAboveWater, are some of Emecheta's novels where she insists that culture and tradition should not be allowed to stand in the way of progress, especially for women. She bemoans cultures where a girl is seen as inferior to a boy; where a wife is valuable only as a means of producing children; where a woman without a male child is despised by the society;and where a father has the capacity to marry off his daughter to any man of his choice without the girl's or her mother's consent. By extension, Emecheta believes that for many women, marriage has become a biological trap that hinders them from achieving their individual worth. She condemns the traditional system in which a woman exists only to give pleasure to the man, bear his children, wash his clothes, and eventually receive his punches. The women in Emecheta's nov els are seldom happy, and their marriages are rarely successful. And even when they have a career, mar riage remains a major hindrance to their self-actu alization. Buchi brazenly dares such women to chal lenge such male dominance and maltreatment, and if possible, ease out of such unions. She readily can vasses education as an all-important force that will liberate women from such subjugation. In her auto biography, Emecheta reveals how education helped to free her from the control of her family, and by extension, from the shackles of tradition. She says her education also enabled her to stand up to her husband when the need arose, and survive a bad marriage. In this regard, Emecheta's critics object that her bad personal experience is not enough for her to generalize and maintain the 'marriage-is-slavery' stick which she wields in her novels. Many of her foreign readers, however, believe that her sto ries are representative of the plight of all women in Africa. Buchi has the reputation of making her read ers uncomfortable through the high-handed and in citing way in which she marshals her points. One of the controversies that surround Buchi Emecheta is feminism. While some of her critics regard her as a feminist, others are quick to say Buchi "is not a feminist at all". Incidentally, Buchi herself says she falls into this last category. But when con fronted with her life and careerwhich suggest other wise, she replied,"... But if I am a feminist, I am an African feminist with a small T". All these go to show her as a reluctant feminist that is wary of the narrow and short-sighted feminism where emphasis is placed on sexism and gender bias. On the contrary, Buchi usually maintainsthat she is more inter ested in campaigning for better life for women and 'woe' to such things which may not bring that about. Some of the titles of Buchi's works are. In The Ditch (1972);Second-classCitizen (1974); The Joys ofMotherhood (1979); Destination Biafra (1982);NairaPower (1982);DoubleYoke andHead Above Water. She also has four children's novels to her credit: Titch the Cat; Nowhere to Play; The Moonlight Bride; and The WrestlingMatch. These novels are in wide use in many parts of the world. Some of them have been translated into a number of European languages and are*used in undergraduate and post-graduate courses. Several dissertations have been written on her novels, while a large number of them are used as O-level and A-level texts in Brit ain. With a degree in sociology, Buchi has worked at various times as a teacher, a librarian, and a com munity worker. In 1980, she returned to Nigeria where she was appointed a senior research fellow in the Department of English, University of Calabar. She soon went back to London where she became a member ofthe Advisory Council to the British Home Secretary on Race and Equality. She has also served on the Arts Council of Great Britain. From her base in London, Buchi Emecheta continues to be concerned about the future of Nige rian novelists and the fate of literary art generally in Nigeria. She is a keen advocate of establishing writ ing as one ofthe career options open to young gradu ates. She often beckons to government to help make writing a worthwhile occupation by coming to the aid of the universities in their attempt to mount the necessary courses. It is Buchi Emecheta's firm be lief that unless the government helps, the Nigerian writer will find it difficult to succeed on his/her own in a very competitive society made worse by poor economic conditions.