How Buchi Emecheta Rose Above Domestic Violence to Become a Literary Icon

One of Africa’s most prolific and celebrated writers, Florence Onyebuchi “Buchi” Emecheta, died on the 25th of January 2017 at the age of 72 (read here).

What many people don’t know is that before she rose to fame, she was temporarily deprived from education and endured an abusive marriage.

Read her story below:

Emecheta, was born on 21 July 1944, in Lagos Nigeria. It was a time when gender bias was prevalent in our society. Initially, she was kept at home while her younger brother was sent to school but after much persuasion, she convinced her parents to send her to school.

Her father died when she was nine years old. She married Sylvester Onwordi, at the age of 16, a student to whom she had been engaged since she was 11 years old. Shortly after her marriage she moved to England where her husband had already relocated to study.

Emecheta, gave birth to their first child at age seventeen and by twenty-two, she was a mother of five.  At the age of 22, Emecheta, left her husband as a result of the domestic violence she endured. She described this experience in in her autobiography, ‘Second class citizen’:

She tried enduring it, stating that the last straw was when she took a copy of her manuscript to him and he burnt it. She said:

“I was the typical African woman, I’d done this privately, I wanted him to look at it, approve it and he said he wouldn’t read it. And later he burnt the book and that was the day I said I’m going to leave this marriage and he said ‘what for, that stupid book’ and I said ‘I just feel you just burnt my child”

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Sources revealed that her husband also neglected her and the children in order to avoid paying bills. She also found her husband sleeping another woman.

One of Emecheta’s publication’s, Adah’s Story in 1983 introduced three major important themes which were a reflection of her life goals –  the quest for equal treatment, self-confidence, and dignity as a woman. In the book, she illustrated the value of education and self-determination for aspiring young women who struggle against sexual discrimination, racism, and unhappy marital arrangements to achieve individuality and independence.

Despite troubles in her marriage, she became a force to reckon with in the literary world and received several awards and accolades for her work.