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Abstract
Despite the substantive research on individual Nigerian Igbo women writers, little is
known on the growth and transition of their writing from the first generation of
writers to the present contemporary third-generation. The overall image that emerges
from the literature is that Nigerian Igbo women’s works redress stereotypical images
of female characters in male writings. This thesis analyses the changing woman
subject in family and the nation in the works of eight Nigerian Igbo women, from first
generation Flora Nwapa, second generation Buchi Emecheta and Ifeoma Okoye, and
third generation Akachi Ezeigbo, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Unoma Azuah, Chika
Unigwe and Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani. An analysis of selected novels reveals the
female subject in each generation changing within the family and nation to be more
pronounced and strong-willed than in the writings of the generation before. Female
characters are no longer depicted in archetypal images of victims but rather portrayed
playing active roles within their family and nation. Womanist theory is applied to
expound the female characters’ quests for self-determination and agency within these
spheres. In the domestic realm of the family a distinct progression can be detected in
the concerns and themes of the novels; but in the representation of nationalism in the
Biafran War, the corruption and criminality that followed the war, and the spread of
sex trafficking, the three generations are in strong agreement. Since the publication of
Flora Nwapa’s Efuru the silenced and stereotyped Igbo woman has found a voice in
women novelists that has impacted greatly on contemporary Nigerian life.