Reimagining Igbo Womanhood: A Reading ofBuchi Emecheta’s Destination Biafra in the Context of Nigerian Civil War

Abstract

Biafran War (1967-1970), one of the most brutal and inhuman wars in the history of Africa, has inspired a number of works and studies in African literary history, a majority of which represent women as victims and stereotype them as passive sufferers of war. There are only a very few works which account the experiences of women who refused to be defeated despite being assaulted, raped, widowed, orphaned and denied dignity during the male scramble for power in post-independence Nigeria. This paper attempts to critically analyze the historical war- narrative Destination Biafra (1982) written by the Nigerian author Buchi Emecheta and relies on African feminist methodology to investigate how a woman writer captures the Nigerian women’s indomitable spirit during the turbulent socio-political scenario in the country.