University Libraries Promotion and Tenure Recognition

Buchi Emecheta’s books have inspired me since my grade school days. The Joys of Motherhood is about the African woman negotiating family life in an age that is fast changing; the conflicting cultures of the new vs. the old, where girls are refused education while all of the wealth of the family is invested in the education of the sons. Buchi, who immigrated to Britain as a young woman, wrote many novels while living as a Diaspora African woman writer, becoming the most important and well-known African woman writer of our time. The book and her life as a writer and woman have inspired me in my own career as an African Diaspora woman writer living in the United States. The Joys of Motherhood is about the satisfaction we get from rising above the conflicting cultures of the Africa we so love, and how a woman without much may gain recognition from raising her children well and the satisfaction of motherhood. But deeper still is the theme of a woman’s struggle in a harsh world, about gender issues, issues of tradition and its conflicts placed on ordinary people. Buchi was a pacesetter for us Diaspora women writers from the African continent. I owe much of my own rise as an African Diaspora poet to her prolific talent as a writer and the sacrifices she made to become what she was to us.