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About this book

Nnu Ego is the daughter of a great Nigerian chief. She is expected to have many sons. With her first husband who beats her, she has no children. She leaves him and is married to a man who works on the coast in a British colony. Her life there is miserable. She and her husband slowly lose their village values and begin a daily battle for food and money. more... (© Literature, Arts and Medicine Database; )

Web sites about this book

• The Joys of Motherhood
  Works; Africa; History; Politics; Religion; Leading Questions; Visual Arts; Gender Matters; Theme & Subject; Setting; Image & Symbol; Narrative Structure; Characterization
  http://www.postcolonialweb.org/landow/post/nigeria/emecheta/motherhoodov.html (African Postcolonial Literature in English; )
  
  
• The Joys of Motherhood by Vicki L. Whisler
  Summary; About the Author; Dialogues; Notes; Links; Teaching
  http://www.wmich.edu/dialogues/texts/joysofmotherhood.html (Colonial & Postcolonial Literary Dialgues; )
  
  
• Nnu Ego's Enslavement by Madeline Algarin
  a student paper about The Joys of Motherhood from the Postcolonial studies class at Bremen University
  http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/anglistik/kerkhoff/AfricanLit/Emecheta/EmechetaAlgarin.htm

Curriculum Resources

• Buchi Emecheta: The Joys of Motherhood (1979) by Paul brians
  Study Guide
  http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/anglophone/emecheta.html (Paul Brians; )

Author Biography

Buchi Emecheta was born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1944.
She married as soon as she left school, aged sixteen, and had two children. Her husband went to study in London and she joined him in 1962, travelling by boat with her children.
When she came, she expected to spend two years studying librarianship, but she has spent almost forty years living mainly in England. After her arrival she had three more children and had to give up her job as a librarian so that she could take care of them.
The critical moment came when her husband refused to read her first novel and then burnt it. She realised just how important it was to her to write.... She left her husband, taking the children with her. She then had to write in order to support the family. More... (© BBC World Service)

Web sites about the author

• Buchi Emecheta
  life events; key influences and themes; Emecheta's work; style; the next chapter; being a woman writer
  http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/arts/features/womenwriters/emechetta_life.shtml (BBC; )
  
  
• Buchi Emecheta
  Works; Africa; Politics; Religion; Leading Questions; Visual Arts; Gender Matters; Theme & Subject; Setting; Image & Symbol; Narrative Structure; Characterization
  http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/landow/post/nigeria/emecheta/emechetaov.html (African Postcolonial Literature in English; )
  
  
• Emecheta
  http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/cm/africana/emecheta.htm (Daniel A. Reboussin, Africana Collection, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida; )

Related resources

• Bride Price
  Also on the Extended Literature List of the Oakland Unified School District
  http://urbandreamsproject.org/language_arts/extended/10/emecheta1/ (Urban Dreams; )
  
  

• We Will Be Heard! - March, 2001
  Modern African-born women writers continue to produce sophisticated narrative art even without the attention and acclaim they deserve. Part of a series about literature from the African continent.
  http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m0HST/2_3/72275237/print.jhtml (Cox, Matthews & Associates; )
  
  

• Emerging from the shadows: Changing patterns in gender matters by Mineke Schipper
  http://www.sistahspace.com/nommo/wom401.html (Indiana University Press; )