Nigerian writer, teacher, and administrator, a forerunner of a whole generation of African women writers. Flora Nwapa is best-known for re-creating Igbo (Ibo) life and traditions from a woman’s viewpoint. With EFURU (1966) Nwapa became black Africa’s first internationally published female novelist in the English language. She has been called the mother of modern African literature
“When I do write about women in Nigeria, in Africa, I try to paint a positive picture about women because there are many women who are very, very positive in their thinking, who are very, very independent, and very, very industrious.” (from an interview with Marie Umeh, 1995)
Flora (Nwanzuruahal) Nwapa was born in Oguta, eastern Nigeria, which was then a British colony. Both of her parents, Christopher Ijeoma and Martha Nwapa, were teachers. She was educated at the University of Idaban, receiving her B.A. in 1957. Nwapa continued her studies in England, earning in 1958 a degree in education from the University of Edinburgh.
After returnig to Nigeria in 1959 Nwapa worked as an education officer in Calabar for a short time, and then she taught geography and English at Queen’s School in Enugu. From 1962 to 1964 Nwapa was an assistant registrar at the University of Lagos. During the Nigerian Civil war, which broke out in 1967, she left Lagos with her family. Like many members of the Igbo elite, they were forced to to return to the eastern region after the end of the conflict. Nwapa served from 1970 to1971 as Minister for Health and Social Welfare for the East Central State. Her tasks included finding homes for 2000 war orphans. Later she worked for Commissioner for Lands, Survey, and Urban Development. In 1982 the Nigerian government bestowed on her one of the country’s highest honors, the OON (Order of Niger). By her own town, Oguta, she was awarded the highest chieftaincy title, Ogbuefi, which is usually reserved for men of achievement.
Besides writing books, Nwapa established Tana Press, which published adult fiction. It was the first indigenous publishing house owned by a black African woman in West Africa. Between 1979 and 1981 she produced eight volumes of adult fiction. Nwapa set up also another publishing company, Flora Nwapa and Co., which specialized in children’s fiction. In these books she combined Nigerian elements with general moral and ethical teachings. As a business woman, she also encouraged with her own exaple to break the traditional female roles of wife/mother and strive for equality in society. However, Nwapa did not call herself a feminist but a “womanist”, a term coined by the American writer Alice Walker in her collection of essays, In Search of My Mother’s Garden: Womanist Prose (1983).
As a novelist Nwapa made her debut with Efuru, based on an old folktale of a woman chosen by gods, but challenged the traditional portrayal of women. Efuru, which Nwapa started to write in 1962, was the first novel published by a Nigerian woman. She sent to manuscript to Chinua Achebe in Lagos and after some editorial suggestions, Achebe sent it to Heineman Educational Books for publication. The story was set in a rural community. Efuru, the heroine, is a strong and beautiful woman. She loses her child and has two unhappy marriages, but struggless against all obstacles to become a successful businesswoman. At the end she goes to the lake goddess, Uhamiri, who is like a mirror of herself. Uhamiri gives her worshipers wealth and beauty but few children. Nwapa’s second novel, IDU (1970), was also a story about a woman, whose life is bound up with that of her husband. When he dies, she choices to seek him out in the land of dead rather than live without him or prefer motherhood to anything else. The critical reception was mainly hostile. Eustace Palmer in African Literature Today and Eldred Jones in The Journal of Commonwealth Literature compared it with Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine (1966), but not in Nwapa’s favour.
Nwapa wrote short stories, poetry and children’s books, such as MUMMYWATER (1979), which brought to life a water deity - the water goddess Ogbuide or Uhamiri appeared also in her adult fiction. Nwapa’s war novel, NEVER AGAIN (1975), drew its material from the Nigerian Civil War (see also: Chinua Achebe). The protagonist, Kate, who starts as a supporter of the Biafran cause, ends struggling simply to survive. WIVES AT WAR, AND OTHER STORIES (1980) dealt with the Biafran conflict.
Flora Nwapa died on October 16, 1993 in Enugu, Nigeria. She was married to Gogo Nwakuche, an industrialist; they had three children. At the time of her death, Nwapa had completed a manuscript of THE LAKE GODDESS, her final novel. It focused on the lake goddess Mammy Water, the eternal spring and mythical inspirer of Nwapa’s fiction. Legends tell that the fairy godmother has her adobe on the bottom of Oguta Lake, near the author’s birthplace.
For further reading: Love, Motherhood and the African Heritage: The Legacy of Flora Nwapa by Feml Nzegwu (2003); Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century, vol. 3, ed. by Steven R. Serafin (1999); Postcolonial African Writers, ed. by Pushpa Naidu Parekh and Siga Fatima Jagne (1998); Emerging Perspectives on Flora Nwapa, ed. by Marie Umeh (1997); ‘These Days [III] - A Letter to Flora Nwapa’ by Ama Ata Aidoo, in Research in African Literatures, ed. by Marie Umeh and Ogunyemi Chicwenye Okonjo (1995); Motherlands, ed. by Susheila Nasta (1992); Nigerian Female Writers, ed. by Henrietta Otokunefor and Obiageli Nwodo (1989); Ngambika: Studies of Women in African Literature, ed. by Carole Boyce Davies and Anne Adams Graves (1986); Women Writers in Black Africa by Lloyd W. Brown (1981) - Note: Flora Nwapa’s date of birth is in some sources 18 Jan. 1931; in this calendar: 13. Jan., 1931
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Finnish journalist, educator and poet, who assisted the poet Arvid Genetz (1848-1915) during his journeys in Carelia and East-Russia. Nuormaa was influenced among others by the Swedish poet Viktor Rydberg (1828-1895), whose lyrics he translated into Finnish. During the period from the late 19th-century to the early 20th-century, when Russian government started to integrate Finland more firmly with the rest of the Empire, Nuormaa’s patriotic works had a deep influence on public opinion and strengthened opposition against Russian authorities.
Nyt valitkaa!
Joko orjan kieli
ja orjan mieli
ja orjan omatunto,
tai Suomen kieli
ja Suomen mieli
ja Suomen tunto ja kunto
Nyt valitkaa!
Joko kulta ja kullan kunniaa,
tai isänmaa!
(from Runoja, uusi sarja, 1900)
Severi Nuormaa was born in Pälkäne as the son of Reinhold Nyman, a blacksmith and farmer, and Helena Salomontytär. Reinhold Nyman gained fame as a blacksmit but he never became wealthy. In one poem Nuormaa depicts his father, who works in his smithy, all in a swelter, and later carries his son home with his strong arms: “Kylän lapset ne vain näki raatavan sun hikivirrassa huoaten, kylpein, mut minä, min’ olin ylpein, käsivars se kun kantoi kotihin mun.” Although the family was poor, they sent Nuormaa to Helsinki and Hämeenlinna to continue his studies. He graduted from lycée in 1888. Next year he travelled with the linguist Arvid Genetz in Eastern Russia, collecting folklore and linguistic material. Their journey to the Urals took half a year, and Nuormaa wrote during this period some of his earlies poems, such as ‘Näköala Kremliltä’ and ‘Näköala Uralilta’. Between the years 1891 and 1893 Nuormaa edited the newspaper Hämeen Sanomat. In 1893 Nuormaa received his M.A. from the University of Helsinki. He worked as a director of Etelä-Häme folk high school (1894-1898) and the Worker’s Institute of Tampere (1899-1903). In 1894 Nuorvala married Hilja Dagmar Ernestine Wendell, the daughter of a district police superintendent, who was politically active in the passive resistance movement against Russia. She also participated in many ways in municipal politics in Turku.
To collect material for his doctoral thesis Nuormaa visited the universities of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, Copenhagen, and Uppsala. He was also highly popular orator, whose speeches arose suspicion among Russian authorities, who had started campaign to restrict freedoms. He also angered clerical circles in 1902, when he accused the Church of forgetting the oppressed. “Kuinka kova onkaan se uskon käsitys, joka tahtoo lyödä jo lyötyä, sortaa jo ennestään sorrettua. Kuvittelen mielessäni maassa makaavan sidotun raukan, jota piestään ja tallataan, ja jonkun uskonnon kannalta vaientavan kärsivän liikahduksia: olet paha, nöyristy, nöyristy! Epäilemättä Jumala sanoisi moiselle lphduttajalle, niinkuin hän sanoin Jobin ystäville: te ette ole oikein minuista puhuneet.” Nuormaa was dismissed from his office at the Worker’s Institute of Tampere, after General-Governor Bobrikov received several letters from informers. To avoid arrest, he left the country. Between the years 1903-05 Nuormaa lived with his family in the United States, where he edited the magazines Päivälehti and Amerikan kaiku. After returning to Finland he worked as a journalist and director of the Finnish Workers’s Institute of Turku (1908-1918). He edited the newspapers Tampereen Sanomat (1905) and Helsingin Sanomat (1906-09), and from 1911 to 1914 Nuorvala worked for the magazine Kodin Kuvasto, and then for the newspaper Turun Sanomat (1919-24).
“Samaran-Ufan rautatiellä elok. 2 p. Aro, tukahduttava kuumuus. Vaunusta on loppunut vesi. Eräällä asemalla oli tatari tullut tarjoamaan suuresta, mustasta pullosta kumiskaa (hevosen maidosta tehtyä juomaa) ja olimme juoneet sitä kumpikin 3-4 lasillista. Oikaisetessamme penkillä toisiamme vastapäätä Genetz alkoi viheltää iloista säveltä, ja minä olin näkevinäni, että hänen silmänsä loistivat kummallisesti. Vihdoin hän kohottausi paikallaan ja sanoi: - Kuule, minä luulen, että me olemme juovuksissa!” (Nuormaa’s foreword in Muistoja ja toiveita by Arvi Jännes, 1918)
Nuormaa’s major works were published during a period, which was marked by resistance to Russification policies. National themes dominated literature, and deep tensions and social unrest burst into the surface with the Great Strike of 1905. Among his friends was the poet Eino Leino, who influenced his writing. As poet Nuormaa made his debut in 1895 with KOTOISILLA RANNOILLA under the name Severi Nyman. It ws followed by RUNOJA (1900), SEITSEMÄN RUNOA (1902), ELÄMÄN ULAPOILLA (1904). These collections were characterized by enthusiastic patriotism, forcible rhythms, idealism, and solemnity. Nuormaa published also studies, and translated into Finnish works from such authors as Alexander Petöfi (1892) and Viktor Rydberg (1896). From 1906 to 1908 he was the chairman of the Writers’ Association. The Finnish Civil War (1917-18) left Nuormaa politically disillusioned. As a poet he felt he had lived past his own time.
In 1918 Nuormaa resingned from his office at the workers’ institute. He moved for a short time from Turku to Helsinki where he edited the military propaganda magazine Sotilas-Viikkolehti. As a humanist who read Homer, Horace, and Heinrich Heine, and associated with writers and artists, Nuormaa was not happy with this kind of work. He returned to Turku where he worked as the editor of the newspaper Turun Sanomat. Nuormaa died of pneumonia on June 11, 1924, in Turku. His friend Eino Leino had sent him postcard greetings, which arrived a few days later, asking is he still writing: “Vieläkö helskytät, hei, / tätä suomesi soipoa kieltä: / Veljesi Eino Leino.” Nuormaa’s last book, RISTI JA RUNO, appeared in 1922. It was more personal than the previous collections, which were coloured by political and social upheavals.
For further reading: Uudempi suomalainen kirjallisuus I-II by O.A. Kallio (1928); Aleksis Kivestä Martti Merenmaahan (1954); Severi Nuormaa: Kansansivistäjä, sanomalehtimies, runoilija by Urho Verho (1956); ‘Routavuosien Severi Nuormaa’ by Marja Niiniluoto, in Helsingin Sanomat 15.10.1965 - Note: Oskar Merikanto’s song ‘Kuin hiipuva hiillos’ was based on Nuormaa’s poem
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