DINFA | Directory of Nigerian Female Authors

THE DINFA PROJECT

Directory of Nigerian Female Authors (DINFA) is a research project developed in collaboration with International Research Council of Humanities and Social Sciences Studies on Africa (IRCHSSSA, studiesonafrica.com) and International Research Confederacy on African Literature and Culture (IRCALC, africaresearch.org).

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

DINFA is a celebration of the writings by Nigerian female authors whose literary contributions had helped to expand the ever-widening frontiers of African Literature in English and Indigenous languages. Nigerian Literature has one of the (if not the only) fastest growing literary corpus in black Africa. It is a statement of fact that women contribute majority of works in this category.

Incidentally while most male writers are known because they have easy access to the internet, the reverse is the case for most women. Part of the reason is due to economic, educational and technical marginalization of women in the African continent. Another very important but often neglected reason is that of time constraint due to the numerous roles women in Africa fulfill as care-givers, mothers, wives, aunts etc. Over the decades, only the male “voices” are resonant in this area. This is in sharp contrast with few whimpers made by women now and then. Of these whimpers a great majority are made by women who live outside the country and as such have easy access to the internet. The works of the remaining ninety-nine percent living in the country are relatively unknown to the outside world.

Our goal is to create greater awareness of the breadth and various writings made by women in Nigeria in the area of literature and criticism. Here, we attempt a comprehensive listing of Nigeria’s female creative writers and critics, with the firm belief they too deserve to be heard.