Late Nigerian-born British novelist, Buchi Emecheta, has been honoured with a Google Doodle for her contributions to literature on what would have been her 75th birthday.
Born in Lagos, Nigeria on July 21, 1944, Emecheta wrote novels, plays, autobiography as well as works for children.
She was the author of more than 20 books, including Second Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979).An early victim of gender bias against girls and violent marriage, Emecheta wrote to keep her sanity and feed herself.
Her books explore themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education gained recognition from critics and honours.
Characterised as “the first successful black woman novelist living in Britain after 1948”, most of her fictional works are focused on sexual discrimination and racial prejudice informed by her own experiences as both a single parent and a black woman living in United Kingdom.
Emecheta suffered a stroke in 2010 and died in London on January 25, 2017, aged 72.
She features at number 98 on a list of 100 women recognised in August 2018 by BBC History Magazine as having changed the world.
