Buchi Emecheta was born in 1944 in Lagos, Nigeria. At the age of 22, she began studying sociology at the University of London and was awarded her doctorate in 1991. Her novel, The Slave Girl (1977) won the 1979 New Statesman's Jock Campbell Award for Commonwealth Writers. Emecheta was later listed among the Best of Young British Novelists in 1983 and was also appointed OBE in 2005 for her services to literature. Following her success as an author, Emecheta travelled widely as a visiting professor, lecturing at universities such as the University of Calabar, Yale University, and the University of London. Alongside her son, she ran the Ogwugwu Afor Publishing Company and was a regular contributor to the New Statesman, Times Literary Supplement, and the Guardian. Buchi Emecheta died in 2017.