Renowned Nigerian writer, famous proponent of women’s right and gender equality, Buchi Emecheta, though late, her witty words provides guidance for this generation, especially women.
So, we have put together 25 invaluable quotes from the beloved writer. Read and be inspired!
- “But who made the law that we should not hope in our daughters? We women subscribe to that law more than anyone. Until we change all this, it is still a man’s world, which women will always help to build.”
- “Women should not be suppressed because they are women, because they have children and because of men. Then I am a feminist. But when it comes to the African concept, for the moment, I say ‘feminist plus’. We have so many other problems.”
- “I am a woman and a woman of Africa. I am a daughter of Nigeria and if she is in shame, I shall stay and mourn with her in shame.”
- “I work toward the liberation of women, but I’m not feminist. I’m just a woman.”
- “I’m not just a feminist – I’m a feminist plus.”
- “When I came to England it wasn’t what it is now, then the black people were very rarely strong. I had a personal shock because England wasn’t what I expected it to be… where people lived like Jane Austen.”
- “I like to be called a Nigerian rather than somebody from the Third World or the developing or whatever.”
- “The first book I wrote was The Bride Price which was a romantic book, but my husband burnt the book when he saw it. 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.”
- “I was a threat to a lot of women and to a lot of men. The women cannot forgive me if I remain single and also have a family. But I have a family as well and am raising them. A lot of women only stay in their marriages because of the children so seeing me on my own annoys them.”
- “I believe it is important to speak to your readers in person… to enable people to have a whole picture of me; I have to both write and speak. I view my role as writer and also as oral communicator.”
- “Men blackmailing you as a woman leads you to trivialise sex and say ‘it’s not important, what is important is myself as a person, no one owns me because of sex.”
- “Being a woman writer, I would be deceiving myself if I said I write completely through the eye of a man. There’s nothing bad in it, but that does not make me a feminist writer. I hate that name. The tag is from the Western world – like we are called the Third World.”
“Few things are as bad as a guilty conscience.”
Buchi Emecheta
- “I came to England in 1962 as a very young bride, in my teens, hoping just to stay two years and go back.”
- “As soon as I finish a book, I sell the paperback rights to different publishers and that’s where I recoup my money.”
- “I always value my large kitchen because it was better to do everything there, you wash up, you do everything, rather than messing up another room and I pop my typewriter just next to it. So I still write now but I was doing more writing when the children were younger.”
- “In all my novels, I deal with the many problems and prejudices which exist for Black people in Britain today.”
- “God, when will you create a woman who will be fulfilled in herself, a full human being, not anybody’s appendage? She prayed desperately.”
- “At home in Nigeria, all a mother had to do for a baby was wash and feed him and, if he was fidgety, strap him onto her back and carry on with her work while that baby slept. But in England she had to wash piles and piles of nappies, wheel the child round for sunshine during the day, attend to his feeds as regularly as if one were serving a master, talk to the child, even if he was only a day old! Oh, yes, in England, looking after babies was in itself a full-time job.”
- “In Ibuza sons help their father more than they help their mother. A mother’s joy is only in the name. She worries over them, looks after them when they are small; but in the actual help on the farm ,the upholding of the family name, all belong to the father.”
- “Marriage is lovely when it works, but if it does not, should one condemn oneself? I stopped feeling guilty for being me.”
- “A man is never ugly”.”
- “Living entirely off writing is a precarious existence and money is always short, but with careful management and planning I found I could keep my head and those of my family, through God’s grace, above water.”
- “The concept of whiteness could cover a multitude of sins.”
- “Writers simply have to write, and not worry so much about what people think, because public opinion is such a difficult horse to ride.”