Garlands on Buchi Emecheta’s grave

The pioneer female writer who passed on earlier in the year was celebrated loudly in Lagos.

THOUGH Buchi Emecheta died on January 25, 2017 in the United Kingdom and was buried there on February 15, the literati in Nigeria converged on Terra Kulture, Victoria Island, Lagosin her honour on March 25.

Tagged Tribute to Buchi Emecheta and convened by novelist Ike Oguine and the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA), the event featured readings, performances and discussions from and around the late writer’s works.

US-based writer, Sefi Atta, Nigeria Prize for Literature winner, Chika Unigwe and writer Molara Wood, were the three main panellists that read from her works and shared Emecheta’s influences on their lives and literary careers at the occasion emceed by JahmanAnikulapo.

Aside the trio, others at the celebration of the author of 20 novels including ‘Second Class Citizen’, ‘Into the Ditch’, ‘The Bride Price’, ‘Head Above Water’, ‘Destination Biafra’, ‘A Kind of Marriage’, ‘The Joys of Motherhood’ and ‘The New Tribe’ were her son, Sylvester Onwordi, Kunle Ajibade,Toyin Akinosho Kola Tubosun, Victor Ehikhamenor, Toni Kan, DamiAjayi and Ayodele Morocco-Clarke.

Atta, who read from Head Above Water gave a fascinating account of lessons she took from the writer decorated with an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2005. She held that the agony of having to re-write her first manuscript burnt by her husband was not the only privation Emecheta suffered. “The daily grind of being a mother to five young children while getting a university degree and writing was hard enough.  I know this; I have one child, a daughter but I didn’t think I will be capable of giving her the attention she deserved if I had more children.So, to me, Buchi Emecheta was a child-bride, child mother and child divorcee, who would later become a renowned writer, published in journals like Granta and, the New Statesman with TV scripts produced by the BBC. “

Drawing more parallels from Emecheta’s life, the author of Swallow explained that she shared similar preoccupations, including “girlhood, womanhood and motherhood, marriage and religion” in her writings with the late writer. “I admire her ability to write about one generation to the next, yet returning to old traditions; her ability to be naive and insightful at the same time. What set her apart from most Nigerian female writers of her time and mine was that she was incredibly resourceful, industrious and tenacious. For a self-described small woman, Buchi Emecheta had enormous strength. Her works were my introduction to Nigerian feminist ideas and I welcome her call for unity amongst women. She didn’t regard other Nigerian women as threats and she embraced all cultures,” added Atta who disclosed that she cited one of the writer’s works in her forthcoming novel, Made in Nigeria. “Her works are done and they will continue to resonate and I’m sure glad I wrote about her novel in mine,” she declared.

For Belgium-based Unigwe, her first encounter with Emecheta was several years ago in Enugu when she saw a BBC documentary on her at a study centre. “She was talking about living in London and writing with five children and going to school. That left a deep impression on me. That was the first time I heard about her and many years later, when I was struggling with my  PhD, raising four children , writing, , every time I felt lazy I saw the image of Buchi and  her five kids and, I tell myself, Chika you really have no excuse. She’s been like the guiding light for me for years; Buchi is one of the reasons why I persisted in writing.”

Another lesson the author of Night Dancer learnt from Emecheta is that it is possible to live on writing. “She changed my attitude completely towards looking at writing as a career that can put bread and butter on my plate and that’s the way I’ve worked since then,”said Unigwe, who read an excerpt Second Class Citizen.

Wood began by reading her brief commentary published in a national daily when news of Emecheta’s demise broke in January. “Long before the rise of the new generation of female writers, Buchi Emecheta trudged a lonely path taking Nigerian women’s fiction to international heights, making herself a household name at home and abroad. She wrote important books on what it meant to be a woman and what it meant to be in a foreign land. She overcame great odds; her husband burnt her manuscript yet she persevered, setting a wonderful example for every writer. “

The author of Indigo, who also disclosed that she was moved by the tribute Onwordi wrote about his mother because it resonated with her, having lived in London where she combined writing with her day job and at the same time, raising two young children, said it was time the contributions of Emecheta and her contemporaries were recognised. “I think that she was not accorded her place in the canon, so to speak. The women writers of this generation, we also have the duty to help excavate these pioneers of women’s writing similar to what Alice Walker did with Zora Neale Hurston, author of ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God.’ It’s time we accorded these women their rightful place, it’s time we recognised what they actually contributed.”

She thereafter read from where Emecheta wrote about sex in The Joys of Motherhood, prefacing the excerpt with: “We talk in the last 10 years about women writers writing sex like it’s so revolutionary. Well, in 1979 or thereabout, she wrote this.”

Professor Folabo Ajayi-Soyinka, one of the commentators, disclosed that she first met Emecheta through her works. She was stunned, happy and elated when she read ‘The Bride Price’ but admitted regret at not meeting the Ibusa, Delta state born writer in flesh before her passing.  Prof Ajayi-Soyinka reiterated the importance of celebrating writers and other icons before they die.

Kofo Adeleke expressed hope that the reading would bring back interest in the author and requested Onwordito autograph her pile ofEmecheta’s works in place of his mother.

For Kola Tubosun, one of the things that impressed him about Emecheta is “how to write and be influential without being visible, being prolific and combining parenting with her career.”

Toni Kan, who comes from Ibusa like Emecheta, hailed her as a game changer while Wood further cautioned that the writer’s story shouldn’t be turned into a story of victimhood in discussing her. “We need to put pioneer female writers up on the pedestal that men are placed,” she said.

Emecheta’s publisher, Margaret Busby, sent a tribute from the UK, read on her behalf by Adeleke, while Onwordi disclosed that some of his mother’s titles would be re-launched in June.