Ejine Nzeribe, Nwabueze Nwokolo and Sabine Jell-Bahlsen Interviewed by Stephen Embleton

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Three people close to the ‘mother of African literature’ and author of Lake Goddess Flora Nwapa, her daughter Ejine Nzeribe, her cousin Nwabueze Nwokolo, and her friend Sabine Jell-Bahlsen, discuss Nwapa’s life and her posthumously published work.

Nwapa’s Lake Goddess was published in 1995 not long after she died and is often seen as her most important novel. She once described her writing as about ‘the rural and the urban woman in her quest for survival in a fast-changing world dominated by men’. Her daughter, Nzeribe, a trainer and facilitator, her niece, Nwokolo, a royal princess of Ngwaland and a UK- based lawyer, and her friend, Jell-Bahlsen, an anthropologist, filmmaker and author of The Water Goddess in Igbo Cosmology, a monograph informed by the devotees, women, and men and who inspired Nwapa, will talk about Nwapa’s life and work.

Discussions will be chaired by South African-born Stephen Embleton, the 2022 James Currey Fellow at the African Studies Centre, Oxford University, and author of short stories and a speculative fiction novel, Soul Searching.

This event is part of the festival’s programme of African literature and culture.