Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa (13 January 1931 – 16 October 1993), was a Nigerian author who has been called the mother of modern African Literature.

She continued to work in both education and the civil service in several positions, including as Assistant Registrar, University of Lagos (1962–67).

[9] Nwapa's first book, Efuru, was published in 1966 when she was 30 years old, and is considered a pioneering work as an English-Language novel by an African woman writer.

[2] She sent the transcript to the famous Nigerian author Chinua Achebe in 1962, who replied with a very positive letter and even included money for the postage to mail the manuscript to the English publisher, Heinemann.

[12] In the year 1974, she founded Tana Press, and in 1977 the Flora Nwapa Company, publishing her own adult and children's literature as well as works by other writers.

A project far beyond its time at a period when no one saw African women as constituting a community of readers or a book-buying demographic.

[17] Her work appeared in publications ranging from the magazines Présence Africaine and Black Orpheus in the 1960s and '70s to the 1992 anthology Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.

My interest has been on both the rural and the urban woman in her quest for survival in a fast-changing world dominated by men.