Buchi Emecheta, the pioneering Nigerian author whose 20 novels mined her experience as a black single mother in Britain to produce work that inspired a generation of black British writers, has died at the age of 72. Author Aminatta Forna described Emecheta as “one of [Wole] Soyinka’s so-called ‘Renaissance generation,’ those Africans who came of age at the same time as their countries. Fellow African writers described Emecheta as an inspiration, not just for pioneering a route in to literature for other black women, but for tackling domestic abuse. She said Emecheta was “a rock for women writers and single mothers in an unnassuming way … Buchi was warm, caring and humorous. We are going to miss her so much.”British-Nigerian novelist Bernardine Evaristo described Emecheta as “an incredibly important” figure in the history of British literature.

Source: The Guardian January 26, 2017 13:16 UTC