Writing skills is a highly revered skill and writing as a profession is an enviable one, writing birth authors and Nigeria has produced an abundance of well-known ones over time. In a serene workspace such as the one Emerald Zone provides, writing is one of the many things that get easily achieved, our appreciation of writers informed our decision to name some of our workspaces after Wole Soyinka, Cyprian Ekwensi, Elechi Amadi, Buchi Emecheta, Flora Nwapa and Femi Osofisan. This write up is therefore dedicated to these renowned writers.

Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka

Popularly known as Wole Soyinka the first Black African man to be awarded the Nobel prize for literature was born on July 13^th 1934. With great writing skills, he is a Nigerian Playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English Language who received the Nobel prize for literature in the year 1986, for “in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtone fashioning the drama of existence. He sometimes wrote of modern West Africa in a satirical style, but his serious intent and his beliefs in the evils inherent in the exercise of power were usually evident in his work as well. Soyinka attended Government college in Ibadan before graduating in 1958 with a degree in English from the university of Leed in England. Upon his return to Nigeria, he founded an acting company and wrote his first important play, A Dance of the Forest produced 1960 and published 1963 for the Nigerian independence celebrations. He also wrote several plays in a lighter vein, making fun of pompous, westernized schoolteachers in The Lion and the Jewel (first performed in Ibadan, 1959 and published 1963). His more serious plays include The Strong Breed (1963), Kongi’s Harvest (opened the first Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, 1966; published in 1967), The Road (1965), From Zia, with Love (1992) and the Parody King Baabu (performed 2001 and published 2002) reveal his disregard for African authoritarian leadership and his disillusionment with Nigerian society as a whole. His best works exhibit humor and fine poetic styles as well as a gift for irony and satire and for accurately matching the language of his complex characters to their social position and moral qualities. After winning the Nobel Prize, he also was sought after as a lecturer, and many of his lectures were published- notably the Reith Lectures of 2004, as Climate of Fear (2004).

Cyprian Odiatu Duaka Ekwensi

One of Africa’s best short story writers of the 20^th century and Novelist winner of Dag Hamtuarskjold International Merit award was born at Minna in Northern Nigeria on September 26, 1921. He later lived in Onitsha in the Eastern area. He was educated at Achimota College in Ibadan and at the Chelsea School of pharmacy of London University. He lectured in the pharmacy of Lagos and was employed as a pharmacist by the Nigerian Medical Corporation. Ekwensi married Eunice Anyiwo, and they had five children.

Ekwensi, noted for his great writing skills, began his writing Career as a pamphleteer, and this explains perhaps the episodic nature of his novels. This tendency is well illustrated by people of the city (1954), in which Ekwensi gave a vibrant portrait of life in the West African city. It was the first major novel to be published by a Nigerian. In 1960, two novellas appeared for children; The Drummer Boy and The Passport of Mallam Ilia were exercises in blending traditional themes with undisguised romanticism. Ekwensi was brought into the literary limelight nationally and internationally with his work which dwelled on the complexities of the urban society and the encounters of the rising middle class of urban Lagos in their struggle for survival. From Jagua Nana, 1961, to Jagua Nana’s daughter, a sequel to the former. Ekwensi made a graphic exploration of the life of the ordinary folks and the complexities of their existence. His other books include Burning Grass, 1961, Lokotown and other stories,1966, Divided we stand, 1988, king Forever, 1992, and cash on delivery, 2007. 

Emmanuel Elechi Daniel

Popularly known as Elechi Amadi was born on the 12^th of May 1934, in Mbodo-Aluu, in Rivers State, Nigeria, he attended Government College, Umuahia (1948-1952), Survey School, Oyo (1953-1954), and then proceeded to study in the University of Ibadan (1955-1959), where he obtained a degree in Physics and Mathematics. It was while in the university, he adopted the name Elechi Amadi, which he felt reflected his Ikwerre heritage more than his birth name Emmanuel Elechi Daniel. He is an author of plays and novels which is generally about life in the African village, their customs, beliefs and religious practices before the contact to the western world.

Amadi was a writer in residence and a lecture at Rivers State college of education, where he also became dean of Arts, head of literature department and the Director of General Studies. He had his first publication in the year 1957 which was titled “Penitence” in a University of Ibadan Campus magazine called The Horn, edited by John Pepper Clark. Amadi’s first novel, The Concubine which was hailed as “an outstanding work of pure fiction” was published in London in 1966. After critically studying the novel, Alastair Niven wrote: “Rooted firmly among the hunting ad fishing villages of the Niger Delta, The Concubine nevertheless possesses the timelessness and universality of a major novel. The Concubine was later made into a film. Some of his other works include The Great Ponds, published in 1969, Sunset in Biafra, published 1973. In May 2004, a conference was later organized by the Association of Nigerian Authors, Rivers State to mark Elechi Amadi’s 70^th birthday. For his last book, When God Came, Amadi turned for the first time to the genre of science fiction.

Florence Onyebuchi Emecheta

Also known as Buchi Emecheta was born July 21, 1944 in Lagos, Nigeria,  an Igbo writer with great witting skillswhose novels deal largely with the difficult and unequal role of women in both immigrant and African societies and explore the tension between tradition and modernity. She began writing stories based on her life including the problems she initially encountered in England. These works where first published in New Statesman magazine and where later collected in the novel In the Ditch (1972). This work was followed by Second-Class Citizens (1974). Both works were later included in the single volume Adah’s Story (1983). Those books introduce Emecheta’s three major themes, they include, the quest for equal treatment, self-confidence, and dignity as a woman. Somewhat different in style is Emecheta’s novel Gwendolen (1989; also published as The Family), Kehinde (1994) and The New Tribe (2000) which addresses the issues of immigrant life in Great Britain. Perhaps her strongest work, The Rape of Shavi (1983) is the most to categorize. Set in an imaginary African Kingdom, it explores the dislocation that occur when a plane carrying Europeans seeking to escape an imminent nuclear disaster crash. Emecheta who wrote an autobiography, Head Above Water (1986), and several works of children’s and juvenile fiction, was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in 2005

Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa,

Popularly known by her pen name Flora Nwapa is the founder of Tana Press in Nigeria and has great writing skills, the mother of modern African literature was born January 13, 1931 in Oguta, Imo State She was educated in Ogula Port Harcourt, and Lagos before attending university college in Ibadan, Nigeria (1953-1957), and the university of Edinburgh.

Flora Nwapa was the forerunner to a generation of African women writers, and the African woman novelist to be published in the English language in Britain. She achieved international recognition with her first novel Efuru, published in 1966 by Heinemann Educational Books. Flora, while never considering herself a feminist, was best known for recreating life and traditions from an Igbo woman’s viewpoint. She published African literature and promoted women in the African society. Her other books include Idu (1970) which centers on a woman whose life is bound up with that of her husband to the extent that when he dies, she seeks him out in the land of the dead; This is Lagos and Other Stories (1971), One is Enough (1981) and Women are Different (1986). Some of her novels that dealt with the Biafran conflicts include, Never Again (1975), Wives at War and other stories (1980).

Babafemi Adeyemi Osofisan

Popularly known as Femi Osofisan, born 16^th of June 1946 in Erunwon, Ogun State, and was educated at the University of Ibadan, Dakar and Paris. He has great writing skills and has held several posts and won several awards, the most recent, the 2006 Fonlon-Nicholas Award bestowed annually on an African writer for excellence in creative writing and for contributions to the struggles for human rights. won prizes from the association of Nigerian authors (ANA) and was awarded the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM) the highest academic prize in the country is a Nigerian Writer.

He is renowned for his criticism of societal issues, as well as for using surrealism and African traditional performance in some of his works. He frequently discusses the struggle between good and evil. A talented Nigerian critic, writer, poet, and dramatist, Femi Osofisan focuses much of his writing on political injustice and corruption. Midnight Hotel, Morountodun, Birthdays are not for the dying, Jagua Nana, Ladies of Owu, Ajayi Crowther, and many more are just a few of the more than 40 plays he has written and presented. His poems Dream Seekers on Driving Chain and Minted Coins were written under the pen name Okinba Launki. Femi Osofisan uses a variety of literary devices in her writing, including irony, humor, dance folktales, fables, and song.

We hope you find inspiration in some or all of their works and achievements, writing is a skill that can be learned, so go for your win. Meanwhile as stated earlier, we provide serene workspace that can help you come up with fantastic material.