Flora Nwapa Quotes

I don’t even accept that I’m a feminist. I accept that I’m an ordinary woman who is writing about what she knows. I try to project the image of women positively.

What can a woman do? You say everyday. In the end, a woman does something, and even then still you look down on women.

There was nothing in me when I was in school that made me feel I was going to be a writer. It was one of those things that just happened. I didn’t have the ambition to say, “Oh, Flora, you are going to be a writer, so work towards it

What can a woman do?" you say everyday. In the end, a woman does something, and even then still you look down on women.

Feminism was a politics of empowerment that assumed that a woman was a victim. I saw feminism as a politics that had to first position women as victims so that it can then empower them.

There is no problem in this world that cannot be solved.

We are well, Efuru replied. It is only hunger. It is good that it is only hunger. Good health is what we pray for.

As Adiewere and Efuru were eating, a troop of children with shining tummies in front of them were seen approaching. "These children are just in time. The way they time themselves is admirable.

Efuru told him that she would drown herself in the lake if he did not marry her. Adizua told her he loved her very much and that even the dust she trod on meant something to him.

I am sure you will like this gin. Nwabuzo had it buried in the ground last year when there was rumour that policemen were sent to search her house. When the policemen left, finding nothing, Nwabuzo was still afraid and left it in the ground. A week later, she fell ill and was rushed to the hospital where she remained for six months. She came back only a week ago. So the gin is a very good one.

When Efuru went home, Ajanupu could not help admiring her character. "She is a woman among women. I like the way she is carrying her burden. She still loves that imbecile husband of hers and she is going in search of him.

I don’t think that I’m a radical feminist,”

The novel captures the ongoing changes in Nigerian society where women strive for (economic) independence and personal happiness and growth rather than a life within the boundaries of an outdated tradition. In stressing the economic independence of women, Nwapa reminded me of Virginia Woolf and her essay “A Room Of One’s Own”.

Women have always been powerful and striven to achieve financial independence. I wanted a politics that fought for expanding and nurturing the power that women already had. It is not that I believed that there was no such thing as gender inequality. I just did not want to see a woman as a victim but as someone who was always enterprising and looking for ways to undermine the systems of power that tried to put her down.

If I am considered the doyenne of African female writers, the glory goes to the oral historians and griottes who mesmerized me with stories about the mystical powers of Ogbuide, the mother of the lake, my family members of industrious women and men who served as role models, as well as my penchant for service and the pursuit of excellence.