Chika Unigwe

Chika Unigwe was born and raised in Enugu, Nigeria in 1974. After completing her bachelor’s degree in English at the University of Nigeria, she moved to Belgium in 1995. Unigwe has published five novels, a collection of short stories and numerous texts in anthologies and literary magazines.

Her second novel »On Black Sisters Street« (2007), which was awarded the Nigerian Prize for Literature in 2012, attracted international attention: Sisi, Ama, Efe, and Joyce leave Nigeria to work as nannies in Europe, but instead they end up in the red light district of Antwerp, where they have to pay off their trafficking debts under the thumb of a strict pimp. After Sisi is murdered because she wanted to leave sex work behind, the other women open up to each other and talk about their lives. With a great feel for the psychology of her characters, Unigwe tells a story of migration, of attempts to live in dignity despite undignified circumstances, of lost autonomy, female solidarity, and toxic masculinity.

Unigwe’s latest novel »The Middle Daughter« (2023) is a story of fate on a mythological scale. After the 17-year-old Nigerian girl Nani loses her older sister and her beloved father in quick succession, she sinks into a deep depression and falls into the hands of the impoverished itinerant preacher Ephraim. The multi-perspective novel contains lyrical passages in which the protagonist’s dead sister comments on the events, and tells of grief and shame, religious manipulation, domestic and sexual violence – and of a woman’s attempt to free herself from her oppressive living conditions. »Publishers Weekly« praised the novel, stating that »Unigwe’s nuanced imagery and vivid, lyrical prose are an asset to Nigerian feminist literature.«

The author is a professor of creative writing at Georgia College and lives with her husband and children near Atlanta in the USA.

Status: May 2024

Schwarze Schwestern
Tropen
Stuttgart, 2010
(T: Ira Wilhelm)

The Phoenix
Farafina
Lagos, 2007

On Black Sister’s Street
Jonathan Cape
London, 2009

Night Dancer
Jonathan Cape
London, 2012

Better Never than Late
Cassava Republic
Abuja London, 2019

The Middle Daughter
Dzanc Books
Ann Arbor, 2023
Canongate
UK, 2023