Birthday profile

Flora Nwapa

Nigerian writer

Born
January 13, 1931
Died
October 16, 1993
Zodiac sign
Capricorn
Birth year
1931

About Flora Nwapa

Chief Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa (13 January 1931 – 16 October 1993), was a Nigerian author who has been called the mother of modern African Literature. She was the forerunner to a generation of African women writers, and the first African woman novelist to be published in the English language in Britain. She achieved international recognition with her first novel Efuru, published in 1966 by Heinemann Educational Books. While never considering herself a feminist, she was best known for recreating life and traditions from an Igbo woman's viewpoint. She was herself a chief of the tribe, holding the otherwise exclusively male title Ogbuefi amongst them. She published African literature and promoted women in African society. She was one of the first African women publishers when she founded Tana Press in Nigeria in 1970. Nwapa engaged in governmental work in reconstruction after the Biafran War; in particular, she worked with orphans and refugees who were displaced during the war. Nwapa, was Nigeria's first Minister of Commerce and Industries, according to The House of Nwapa, the documentary by Onyeka Nwelue.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Flora Nwapa was born

Flora Nwapa was born in 1931. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1931

  • #1 song"Stardust" – Artie Shaw
  • Top movieFrankenstein
  • Best-selling bookThe Good Earth – Pearl S. Buck

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentKnute Rockne dies in plane crash
  • Top headlineAl Capone convicted of tax evasion
  • Technology milestoneEmpire State Building completed
  • Defining fadJigsaw puzzles
  • Notable inventionElectric razor
  • World population2.10 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderHerbert Hoover
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • U.S. population124.0M

1931 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Flora Nwapa's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19312026
Gas$0.17$3.45/gal
Average home$5,500$435,000
Average income$3,000$67,500
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population124.0M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.