Often described as semi-autobiographical,[1][2] the novel entails the story of Adah, the major book character, Nigerian woman who overcomes strict tribal domination of women and countless setbacks to achieve an independent life for herself and her children.

On the dedication page to Second Class Citizen, the author references "my dear children, Florence, Sylvester, Jake, Christy and Alice, without whose sweet background noises this book would not have been written".

However, Francis sought them out at the new place and beat Adah mercilessly in an attempt to bring her back home even though she was heavily pregnant with their fifth child.

Hermione Harris wrote in Race & Class: "Of the scores of books about race and black communities in Britain that had appeared during the 1960s and early 1970s, the great majority are written by white academic ultimately concerned with the relationship between white society and black 'immigrants'.

John Self in The Guardian wrote that, despite being on Granta's Best of Young British Novelists list in 1983, in subsequent years Emecheta "...didn't get the column inches.

So it's a late justice that she is one of the few Granta alumni, alongside Martin Amis and Shiva Naipaul, to be promoted to the Penguin Modern Classics list.