HEAD ABOVE WATER. By Buchi Emecheta

The author, Emecheta, who died last week, was certainly one of Africa's all time great creative female writers, alongside the likes of Ama Ata Aidoo, Flora Nwapa, Bessie Head, and Sindiwe Magona. But many would reckon Emecheta as the greatest since her output was astonishing, well over ten world class novels. Ironically Head above water is auto-biographical, revealing many aspects of this astonishing woman, how she triumphed against all odds. We can see that she is a personality with so much belief in herself, great endurance and fortitude, doing everything to single-handedly take care of all her children after landing in London. She has her own principles and ideas and can be termed a "powerful" woman, certainly her achievements attest to this. She just goes on and on, spreading her wings, even adding drama to her literary corpus, etc - all with a strong determination. Yet her great talent should never be underestimated, she was a born writer and proved it over the decades. In this book for example, she has a disagreement with her daughter, who promptly announces that she would be going to stay with her (estranged) father! This shocks her mother very much; yet this galvanises her to swiftly write a wonderful novel titled The joys of motherhood - about a long suffering mother! This episode demonstrates how much of a creative, skillful writer the author is, creating another enduring work spurred by what was a painful episode in her personal life. This is a very powerful autobiography.
- Review by Henry Ozogula