Women Authors From Nigeria

"If hunger forces a farmer to eat both his yam tubers and his seed yams, the years to come will have no yams to eat and none to plant"

"I was going to live with her and no amount of sobbing and begging was going to change his decision"

"If someone dies every week or so for the next five years then I'll never go hungry again…"

"It was mean of him to expel her just because she didn't keep her legs closed. Maybe if I kept my legs open I'd also get expelled and Daddy would have to find me another school for me to go in Lagos"

"Just get it out there and learn everything you can along the way."

"Professor Zulu Sofola, my elder sister, was a great lady. I was very little when she travelled overseas, so we never met until after a very long time. I first knew her through pictures. I must say that she laid a solid foundation for us, the younger ones. She actually took a lot from our parents; our parents were very hardworking and loving. They helped the community, training young people and providing solutions that were within their power."

"Sofola forges a link between her religion (Christianity) and her culture, seeking to interweave traditional practices with Christian doctrines. In the play (The Disturbed Peace of Christmas), Titi, who is playing the role of Mary for the community’s Christmas play is pregnant by Ayo, who is playing the role of Joseph. The entire Christmas programme for the community is threatened by the adolescent’s “sinful act” which in turn threatens the message of peace for the period as both families are initially tense and poise for conflict."

"Mere woman"

"...a male-dominated world where the voice of women seemed unheard and under-appreciated, 'Zulu Sofola stepped forward and distinguished herself as a literary icon and an excellent dramatist."

"Her (Sofola) plays are largely traditional and instructive and they tell tales of love and royalty through tragedies and the various experiences of human life in such a way that readers and audience alike are both entertained and informed in one scenario or the other."

"Music was my original interest. But when I was studying in the United States, I had to select another subject in addition to my main line. That was what landed me in drama. But I found that in dram I was also in music because I could produce plays with a musical background and I could use music for the mood. So it was through music that I got into writing."

"I am motivated by human problems that confront us all. It depends on the spirit of a problem before I get the kind of inspiration which makes me want to write about it. Then I do my research."

"The essence of instituting the yearly Prof. Zulu Sofola‘s Day, which has commenced today in Issele-Uku, is not only to celebrate this erudite scholar, prolific writer and matriarch of Nigerian Theatre, but also to join her (Zulu Sofola) with other world’s great people, whose remarkable achievements have earned them special days when people and nations gather to recall and mark their immense contributions to humanity."

"Most of my writing questions the 'isms' that have been superimposed on the African people."

"She (Zulu Sofola) was a mother in the true sense of the word and went beyond the call of duty as the head of our department. My personal connection with this woman makes me really proud and hungry to put her work here in this space for everybody to see."

"Education is one of the most important means to give women the knowledge,skills and self-confidence necessary for emancipation"

"To be able to honor the legacy of Zulu Sofola and everything she’s meant to Nigeria and Africa and to bring that to our stage and enable our students to have the experience of working on a play like this is really important. The mission of the School of Dramatic Arts is to change the face of the entertainment industry, and that includes the stories that are told on our main stages."

"Through the voices of women, Onwueme draws out universal themes of conflict. She uses the dramatic form to express an optimism for the future, for change and challenge to the repressive powers over people’s lives."

"Onwueme’s creative works continue to influence and generate significant interest around the world, as they are widely produced/staged, studied, taught, and written about in scholarly books, dissertations, theses, book chapters, journal articles, and international media. Onwueme’s works have a wide range of social, political, historical, cultural and environmental concerns of the masses in the global community today, with emphasis on women, youth in continental Africa and the Diaspora."

"In her work, Onwueme has shown daring in her exploration of ideas even if they lead to subjects and themes which may seem taboo. Onwueme is eminently a political dramatist, for power affects every other aspect of society. She explores these themes with a dazzling array of images and proverbs. Her drama and theater are a feast of music, mime, proverbs, and story-telling...[thus] Onwueme consolidates her position among the leading dramatists from Africa."

"As black, they themselves suffered as victims of a white patriarchal culture, as women, they also face racial, sexual harassment, and class discrimination by white men. Within the framework, most of the black women writers...deal mainly with the black woman as a victim of black patriarchy"

"Womanism is black-centred; it is accommodationist. It believes in the freedom and independence of women like feminism; unlike radical feminism, it wants meaningful union between black women and black men and black children and will see to it that men begin to change from their sexist stand. It is also interested in communal well-being."

"People create social conditions and people can change them."

"Internationally renowned for her award-winning plays, Dr. Tess Onwueme is the literary soul-mate of Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and Ngugi wa Thiong’o. She is the first African woman dramatist to break into their ranks, so that What Mama Said, Tell it to Women, Shakara: Dance-Hall Queen, The Missing Face, The Desert Encroaches and the Reign of Wazobia become staples of international college and university curricular in the 21st century."

"Tess Onwueme's play is a spellbinding theatre work! It is written as if Dr. Onwueme is composing a symphonic work... Along with her other masterwork, The Missing Face [this drama] places Tess Onwueme in the ranks of Wole Soyinka, Athol Fugard, and Derek Walcott."

"I don’t have a formula, or a place I can go to get ideas from, for a new book. Usually, ideas come when I least expect them. I could be doing something so boring, like washing up, and bingo, a voice pops up in my head."

"Love and marriage is a personal thing, it is not who people choose for you, but the person your heart desires."

"Mothers-in-law should give their daughters-in-law a chance to love their husbands and enjoy their home."

"No matter how talented you are, a bad character will take you nowhere."

"Everyone is not the same. So, don’t expect the other person to be like you. There is the need for patience and tolerance with the understanding that backgrounds are different."

"There’s something about the Yoruba traditional regalia, it takes you from ground zero to a hundred."

"Women need to understand that when you get married, your husband is actually your mother’s first love, while the mother in-law also needs to understand that her beloved son now has a new love and life partner."

"Travelling has taught me that people are the same all over the world – some irritating, some helpful."

"A good place to start as an artiste or employee is to know your worth, have integrity, and know that your destiny is not in the hands of someone, who is happy to take advantage of you in any way."

"A lot of abuse happened to a number of children not because their mothers didn't care, but in fact because they were going through something of their own and on this occasion postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis."

"The soul (spirit) finds respite in books."

"When your motherland accepts you, that’s the ultimate."

"I visit Africa as much as I can and all my books have an African setting. I get my ideas from reading, listening to people and observing people too."

"Freedom is the many faced god and queerness is its first born."

"Luckily, we don’t have to know everything about everyone’s realities to respect them, not tell lies about them, or believe that they know best what their needs are. We just need to do our bit to ensure they are able to lead dignified, free and safe lives, even when that bit is simply getting the hell out of their way. The root of respect is not the full understanding of other people; it is the recognition of people’s non-negotiable humanity. Regardless of our identities or how we navigate our different worlds, we all have the same rights to self-determine, live in community with others, enjoy access to the opportunities we need to survive, and write our own (magical) narratives. It can never be anyone’s place to tell another person or group of people that yielding space for their needs to be met is a danger to others. Only unrepentant bigotry results in such claims. By making respectful space for one another and learning from those who have the kinds of knowledge that we could never gain on our own, we become able to see all the different worlds that exist in this one that we share. And isn’t that the strongest magic of all?"

"To create hierarchies of humanity, we must distort people. Dehumanisation thrives by making it difficult for those considered less than human to know themselves, or be properly known by others. The systems that produce racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and classism are built on such distortions. They are then maintained by ensuring that the distorted version of the dehumanised group is framed as “who they really are”. This type of misinformation is necessary for maintaining injustice. As long as we remain wilfully ignorant of who marginalised people are, we can claim legitimacy in denying their rights, dignity, and humanity. It’s the perfect vanishing spell."

"Money is good. Imagination is better. Giving yourself permission to create a life that sustains you *no matter what others think* is best."

"They (up and coming actors) should just be themselves. Believe in what they are doing and can do. One day they will get good roles and if they play them properly, they will be made."

"You may think it's too late but it isn't. Time is such a natural referee. It blows the whistle of motion for you at the right moment. You only have a job when this referee (time) blows the whistle. MOVE. Then, you move."

"It has never been easy to reorganise or resist social norms and beliefs, but among the most difficult ones to reject are those at the root of the social system known as patriarchy. This system relies on a few core ideas to perpetuate itself, two of which are that gender is a fixed binary, and women are the inferior parties within it."

"They (up and coming actors) should work on their God given talent first and then try and train to understand the business, they should also remain focused. It is much easier to make it in Nigeria as an actor or actress; of course they should go to the right places and hang out with the right crowd. Hard work is also part of the game, they shouldn't get tired of auditions even if they are not landing the parts, they should try harder, and eventually the producers and financiers will take notice."

"You don’t need to go to the village to see village people anymore. Village people are now in the industry. If you have a tested and trusted friend, keep them, hold them tight and don’t you ever let them go! The world is crueler than you can ever imagine!"

"Let me share with you a short story about STRETCHING FURTHER. I have always been an ardent lover of knowledge since childhood. I have always wanted to acquire enough knowledge as I could not not because I saw them as a means to getting the best life opportunities, but because I wanted to unravel developments as much as possible in various fields of human endeavours. I have always wanted to know something about everything."

"Transgender and gender non-conforming people know things about gender that most cisgender folks are light years away from realising. To survive unequal realities, marginalised folks often cultivate deep knowledge of how these realities actually function."

"I have an unending problem with ladies who expose their bodies online in an attempt to ‘slay’ and be ‘trendy’. Hey, girl! Keep that body to yourself! You really think that man will accept you for being nude online forever? You can’t have your cake and eat it."