Elizabeth Mary Isichei (née Allo; born 22 March 1939) is a New Zealand author, historian and academic.
[2][3] She was educated at Tauranga College, and attained the highest marks in New Zealand in the 1955 university entrance scholarship examinations.
[7] She won a Commonwealth Scholarship and, after a brief period as a temporary assistant lecturer in history at the University of Canterbury, undertook doctoral studies at Nuffield College, Oxford.
[13] Her works and books are centred on Christianity in Africa and the history of Nigeria particularly the Igbo people,[14] including a biography of Michael Tansi, the first Nigerian Trappist monk.
[17] Before going to Oxford in 1962, Allo established a reputation as a poet, with her work appearing in publications including the Listener, Landfall, Comment and the Poetry Yearbook.