Adaora Lily Ulasi
 |
Adaora Lily Ulasi | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1932 (age 91–92) Aba, Eastern Nigeria |
| Nationality | Nigerian |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist and novelist |
| Notable work | Many Thing You No Understand (1970); Many Thing Begin For Change (1971) |
| Spouse | Deryk James (div. 1972) |
| Children | 3 |
Adaora Lily Ulasi // ⓘ (born 1932) was a Nigerian journalist and novelist. She is said to have been the first West African woman to earn a degree in journalism.[1] As a journalist, she has worked for the BBC and Voice of America. As a novelist she wrote detective fiction in English, "adapting the genre of the crime thriller to an Igbo or Yoruba context".[2]
Biography[edit]
Born in Aba, Eastern Nigeria, daughter of an Igbo Chief, she attended the local missionary school, but at the age of 15 was sent to the U.S. to study. After graduating from high school she then studied at Pepperdine University and at the University of Southern California, earning a BA in journalism in 1954.[3] She supplemented her income by writing the occasional newspaper column, working as a nanny, and as a film extra appearing, for example, in the 1953 film White Witch Doctor that starred Susan Hayward and Robert Mitchum.
In the 1960s she was women's page editor of the Daily Times of Nigeria. She subsequently married Deryk James and had three children Heather, Angela and Martin. After her divorce in 1972 she went to Nigeria as editor of Woman's World magazine, and in 1976 returned to England.[citation needed]
Her first novel, Many Thing You No Understand (1970), "controversially (for the first time) used pidgin English to dramatise the interaction between colonial officers and local people in the pre-independence era, as did her subsequent works, Many Thing Begin For Change (1971), Who Is Jonah? (1978) and The Man from Sagamu (1978). By contrast, The Night Harry Died (1974) is set in southern USA."[4] Ulasi worked at the Times Complex in Lagos, Nigeria.[5]
Bibliography[edit]
- Many Thing You No Understand – London: Michael Joseph, 1970; Fontana, 1973
- Many Thing Begin For Change – London: Michael Joseph, 1971; Fontana, 1975
- The Night Harry Died – Lagos: Research Institute Nigeria, 1974
- Who Is Jonah? – Ibadan: Onibonoje Press, 1978
- The Man From Sagamu – London: Collins/Fontana, 1978; New York: Collier Macmillan, 1978
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi, "Adaora Lily Ulasi: Juju Fiction", Africa Wo/Man Palava: The Nigerian Novel by Women, University of Chicago Press, 1996 (Chapter Four, pp. 183–219), pp. 183–4.
- ^ Lorna Sage, ed., The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English, 1999
- ^ Nigeria, Media (5 June 2018). "Biography Of Adaora Lily Ulasi". Media Nigeria. Retrieved 13 April 2021.
- ^ Margaret Busby (ed.), Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent, London: Jonathan Cape, 1992, p. 422.
- ^ "56 Years of Nigerian Literature: Adaora Lily Ulasi". bookshy. Archived from the original on 31 October 2016. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
External links[edit]
Media from Commons
Quotations from Wikiquote
Data from Wikidata
- "56 Years of Nigerian Literature: Adaora Lily Ulasi", Bookshy, October 2016.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
- 1932 births
- Living people
- Nigerian women novelists
- Pepperdine University alumni
- USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism alumni
- 20th-century Nigerian novelists
- 20th-century Nigerian women writers
- Nigerian editors
- People from Aba, Nigeria
- BBC people
- Voice of America people
- Women's page journalists
- Igbo people