Out of the silence: Igbo women writers and contemporary Nigeria

Abstract

Despite the substantive research on individual Nigerian Igbo women writers, little is known on the growth and transition of their writing from the first generation of writers to the present contemporary third-generation. The overall image that emerges from the literature is that Nigerian Igbo women’s works redress stereotypical images of female characters in male writings. This thesis analyses the changing woman subject in family and the nation in the works of eight Nigerian Igbo women, from first generation Flora Nwapa, second generation Buchi Emecheta and Ifeoma Okoye, and third generation Akachi Ezeigbo, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Unoma Azuah, Chika Unigwe and Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani. An analysis of selected novels reveals the female subject in each generation changing within the family and nation to be more pronounced and strong-willed than in the writings of the generation before. Female characters are no longer depicted in archetypal images of victims but rather portrayed playing active roles within their family and nation. Womanist theory is applied to expound the female characters’ quests for self-determination and agency within these spheres. In the domestic realm of the family a distinct progression can be detected in the concerns and themes of the novels; but in the representation of nationalism in the Biafran War, the corruption and criminality that followed the war, and the spread of sex trafficking, the three generations are in strong agreement. Since the publication of Flora Nwapa’s Efuru the silenced and stereotyped Igbo woman has found a voice in women novelists that has impacted greatly on contemporary Nigerian life.