Destination Biafra
{{short description|1982 novel by Buchi Emecheta}}
{{Infobox book
| name = Destination Biafra
| image = Destination Biafra.jpg
| caption =
| alt =
| author = Buchi Emecheta
| country = UK
| language = English
| series = Heinemann African Writers Series
| genre = Literary fiction
| publisher = Heinemann
| pub_date = 1982
| pages = 246 (first edition)
| isbn = 9780435909925
| oclc = 8309889
| preceded_by = The Moonlight Bride
| followed_by = Naira Power
}}
Destination Biafra is a 1982 novel by Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta, first published in London by Allison & Busby. It is considered to be Emecheta's personal account of the Biafra War. Destination Biafra was republished in paperback on 1 March 1994 by Heinemann Educational Books as part of the African Writers Series.{{cite news|title=Destination Biafra by Buchi Emecheta|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1982/09/05/destination-biafra-by-buchi-emecheta-allison-38/fbf88991-3bcc-41cf-bae4-9dbcb4c93855/|first=Alan|last=Ryan|author-link=Alan Ryan (horror writer)|newspaper=Washington Post|date=5 September 1982}}{{cite journal |last=Jilani |first=Sarah |title=Gender and the politics of war historiography in Buchi Emecheta's Destination Biafra |journal=The Journal of Commonwealth Literature |year=2021 |doi=10.1177/00219894211031803|s2cid=238821948 |doi-access=free }}{{cite journal |last=Adams |first=Ann Marie |title=It's a Woman's War: Engendering Conflict in Buchi Emecheta's Destination Biafra |journal=Callaloo |year=2001 |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=287–300 |doi=10.1353/cal.2001.0001 |jstor=3300501 |s2cid=157893416 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3300501|url-access=subscription }}{{cite journal |last1=Unnithan |first1=A. Karthika |last2=Jayaraman |first2=Harini |title='The New African Woman': A Study on Buchi Emecheta's Destination Biafra as a Personal War for Womanhood |journal=Journal of African American Studies |year=2018 |volume=22 |issue=2–3 |pages=274–285 |doi=10.1007/s12111-018-9407-7 |s2cid=150234036 |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12111-018-9407-7|url-access=subscription }}
Plot
Debbie Ogedemgbe, the corrupt Nigerian government minister's daughter, defies her parents by joining the army. Her contradictory sentiments about her role as a traditional Nigerian woman and her desire to participate actively in Biafra's war reflect the struggle going on around her.
Legacy
Reassessing the novel in 2023, Ijedike Jeboma concluded: "Since the publication of Destination Biafra, many Nigerian writers have made contributions to Biafran war literature. In recent years, a large proportion of these writers have done so with limited personal experience of the Biafran war, from their residences outside Nigeria. From Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Uwem Akpan, the mining of collective inherited memories has become central to the re-telling of the Biafra story.... Still, Emecheta’s Destination Biafra stands front and centre as a guiding light; an incredibly ambitious project from which many ideas should be explored and adapted."{{Cite web|url=https://republic.com.ng/june-july-2023/buchi-emecheta-destination-biafra/|title=Writing from the collective memories of others|website=The Republic|date=20 July 2023|access-date=24 March 2024}}
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
Further reading
- Hugh Hodges, [https://www.postcolonial.org/index.php/pct/article/viewFile/898/917 "Writing Biafra: Adichie, Emecheta and the Dilemmas of Biafran War Fiction"], Postcolonial Text, Vol. 5, No 1 (2009).
External links
- Margaret Busby, [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/20/where-to-start-with-buchi-emecheta "Where to start with: Buchi Emecheta"], The Guardian, 20 March 2024.
{{Authority Control}}
Category:Allison and Busby books
Category:Nigerian English-language novels
Category:Novels set in Nigeria
Category:Novels by Buchi Emecheta
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