Mabel Segun
{{Short description|Nigerian writer (1930–2025)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2023}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Mabel Segun
| image = Mabel Segun, 1983 (cropped).jpg
| caption = Segun in Strasbourg, 1983
| honorific_suffix = NNOM
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{birth date|1930|02|13|df=y}}
| birth_place = Ondo City, Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria
| death_date = {{death date and age|2025|3|6|1930|02|13|df=y}}
| death_place =
| nationality = Nigerian
| other_names =
| occupation = {{hlist|Poet|playwright|children's writer|broadcaster}}
| education = University of Ibadan
| years_active =
| known_for =
| notable_works = My Father's Daughter (1965)
| awards = Nigeria Prize for Literature
}}
Mabel Segun, NNOM (13 February 1930 – 6 March 2025) was a Nigerian poet, playwright and writer of short stories and children's books who was also a teacher, broadcaster, and a sportswoman.{{Cite news|url=http://thenet.ng/at-87-years-old-the-matriach-of-nigerian-literature-mabel-segun-is-truly-the-last-of-her-kind/|title=At 87 yrs old, Mabel Segun is truly the last of her kind|last=Taiwo|first=Jide|date=2017-02-01|work=Nigerian Entertainment Today|access-date=2018-06-29|language=en-GB}}
Biography
Born in Ondo City, Nigeria, she had her secondary-school education at CMS Girls' School Lagos. She attended the University of Ibadan, graduating in 1953 with a BA degree in English, Latin and History. She taught these subjects in Nigerian schools, and later became Head of the Department of English and Social Studies and Vice-Principal at the National Technical Teachers' College, Yaba (now Yaba College of Technology).
Her first book, My Father's Daughter, published in 1965, had been widely used as a literature text in schools all over the world, and her books have been translated into German, Danish, Norwegian and Greek. Her work is included in the anthology Daughters of Africa (1992).Busby, Margaret (ed.), Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent (1992), London: Vintage, 1993; p. 372.
Segun championed children's literature in Nigeria through the Children's Literature Association of Nigeria, which she founded in 1978, and the Children's Documentation and Research Centre, which she set up in 1990 in Ibadan. She was also a fellow of the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany.[http://nnma.gov.ng/public/gallery/MabelSegun0.pdf Mabel Segun's Citation and Summary of Achievements]. Nigerian National Merit Awards, Government of Nigeria.
She was a founding member of the Association of Nigerian Authors, established by Chinua Achebe in 1981.{{Cite web|url=https://brittlepaper.com/2013/11/nigerian-writer-join-association-nigerian-authors-brittle-paper-qa-richard-ali/|title=Are You A Nigerian Writer? Why Join The Association of Nigerian Authors?--- Brittle Paper Q&A with Richard Ali|first=Ainehi |last=Edoro|author-link=Ainehi Edoro|date=5 November 2013|website=Brittle Paper|access-date=11 November 2021}}{{Cite web|url=https://ananigeria.org/about/history|title=History of ANA|publisher=Association of Nigerian Authors|website=ananigeria.org|access-date=23 November 2023}}{{Cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/reseafrilite.50.4.08|jstor=10.2979/reseafrilite.50.4.08|doi=10.2979/reseafrilite.50.4.08|title=A Writers' Body and the Nigerian Literary Tradition|year=2020|last1=Diala|journal=Research in African Literatures|volume=50|issue=4|pages=121–141|s2cid=226487570|url-access=subscription}}{{Cite web|url=https://thenationonlineng.net/at-40-we-are-poised-to-celebrate-our-founding-fathers/|title=‘At 40, we are poised to celebrate our founding fathers’|website=Thenationonlineng.net|date=21 February 2021|access-date=11 November 2021|archive-date=25 August 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210825155406/https://thenationonlineng.net/at-40-we-are-poised-to-celebrate-our-founding-fathers/|url-status=dead}}
Segun died on 6 March 2025, at the age of 95.[https://thenewsnigeria.com.ng/2025/03/06/mabel-segun-writer-broadcaster-dies-at-95/ Mabel Segun, writer, broadcaster dies at 95]
Awards and honours
As a broadcaster, Segun won the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation 1977 Artiste of the Year award.
In 2009, she received the Nigerian National Order of Merit Award (NNOM) for lifetime achievements.[http://nnma.gov.ng/nnom-laureates/humanities "NNOM Laureates - Humanities"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161105185007/http://nnma.gov.ng/nnom-laureates/humanities |date=5 November 2016 }}, 2009.
In 2015, the Society of Young Nigerian Writers under the leadership of Wole Adedoyin founded the Mabel Segun Literary Society, aimed at promoting and reading the works of Mabel Segun.{{cite web|url=https://mabelsegunliterarysociety.blogspot.com/|title=Mabel Segun Literary Society|website=mabelsegunliterarysociety.blogspot.com|access-date=23 November 2023}}
In 2007, Segun was awarded the LNG Nigeria Prize for Literature.
Selected bibliography
- My Father's Daughter (1965)
- Under the Mango Tree (co-edited) (1979)
- Youth Day Parade (1984)
- Olu and the Broken Statue (1985)
- Sorry, No Vacancy (1985)
- Conflict and Other Poems (1986)
- My Mother's Daughter (1986)
- [https://www.abebooks.co.uk/first-edition/Ping-Pong-Twenty-five-Years-Table-Tennis/21670955107/bd Ping-Pong: Twenty-Five Years of Table Tennis (1989)]
- [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/36933388 The First Corn (1989)]
- [https://books.google.com/books?id=nGfMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA244 The Twins and the Tree Spirits (1990)]
- [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/60277293 The Surrender and Other Stories (1995)]
- Readers' Theatre: Twelve Plays for Young People (2006)
- [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/761723627 Rhapsody: A Celebration of Nigerian Cooking and Food Culture (2007)]
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
External links
{{Wikiquote}}
- {{IMDb name| 14035674}}
- [https://www.facebook.com/notes/olufemi-e-segun/mabel-segun-1930-to-the-present/511433135539471 "Mabel Segun 1930 to the Present"], Facebook, 20 August 2012.
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Segun, Mabel}}
Category:20th-century Nigerian poets
Category:20th-century Nigerian women writers
Category:English-language writers from Nigeria
Category:Nigeria Prize for Literature winners
Category:Nigerian children's writers
Category:Nigerian women children's writers
Category:Nigerian women educators
Category:People from Ondo City
Category:Recipients of the Nigerian National Order of Merit Award
Category:St Anne's School, Ibadan alumni
Category:University of Ibadan alumni