Editorials
“Efuru”: Archive of Failure, an Ode to Life
Sixty years after Flora Nwapa’s novel appeared, her great-niece revisits it and finds that what once read as failure now reads as life. Flora Nwapa: Efuru at the Threshold ran at Didi Museum, Lagos, from 24 to 31 October 2026. This is an excerpt from Ada Kalu’s essay in its accompanying publication.
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I discovered a copy of Efuru in my mother’s belongings, signed by Flora Nwapa, given to my parents as a wedding gift. I’ve held this book for a few years. It’s a tattered relic. The cover is coming off and it still carries embedded specks of dust that will probably never shift. Despite this, it’s precious to me.
Flora Nwapa is the older sister of Weruche Emeruem, my grandmother. I never met Aunty Flora; she died before I was born. I know Flora Nwapa only in the context of the Nigerian literary canon. I have often wondered if there are instances of me in her. Beyond that, I can’t say I know her, but in returning to Efuru, maybe I do.
For a long time, Efuru read as a story of failure, shame and embarrassment—three things I hate the most. She ends the novel alone and childless. If I am still in a constant battle to affirm my okayness with my own life, and with my desire not to have a child, how much harder was it for Efuru?
· · ·
I last read Efuru at a time when I was thinking a lot about my own perceived shortcomings. A relationship had ended; I had been cheated on and left, and I was starting again after losing a version of a life that I had begun to imagine for myself. In the throes of difficulty, Efuru felt like an archive of failure, and a desperate struggle to see and experience a light that was too far to reach. There is a vulnerability in the way Nwapa writes Efuru. Take the moment when Efuru thinks about the woman her first husband, Adizua, has left her for. She wonders about that woman’s beauty, “But how do I know that she is not as beautiful as I am? It is mere wishful thinking.” I too recall trying to paint a picture of this other person. My journal contains a section that similarly pondered over this woman that “must be remarkable to be able to steal her husband”. There is something tangible in the way Efuru navigates her pain and tries to construct and rationalise this woman in her mind. She doesn’t know who she is, but surely there must be a reason. If she is more beautiful, more remarkable, if there is something she has that Efuru doesn’t, perhaps the loss can be explained. And then Efuru goes to the market. She sells her things “quietly and sadly”, and when asked why, she tells the person to mind their business. She is heartbroken, but she still goes to the market. [IMAGE 2 · OPTIONAL: exhibition view or archival photograph from Àrokò Literary Arts. Caption and credit as supplied.]
· · ·
There’s a line Nwapa writes about Efuru: “she did not altogether break down, as people thought”. That she did not altogether break down doesn’t negate a breakdown happening. I guess I, too, did not altogether break down, but I was holding out for a little bit more.
Every day I would wait for a slightly more suitable time to go back to bed. Staying a little bit longer in bed after waking up meant it would soon be noon and by then with a two-hour nap, the day would drift towards the evening which meant there’d be less of the day left. A little bit more meant the food I had barely consumed would last another day to sustain me for a tad longer, so when people asked if I had eaten, I could honestly say yes, even though my stomach was lined with slivers of nothingness. A little bit more meant feel it now so you don’t feel it later. A little bit more meant keep crying it out until I felt a little bit more like myself. Just a few more tears, for a few more hours, for a few more days. A little bit more meant giving myself some time to get to the things I needed to do. The house that hadn’t been cleaned in over a month. The unwashed dishes that had spilled onto the counter. The suitcase that hadn’t been unpacked in three weeks. The laundry that had crawled out of two baskets and continued as a growing heap on the floor. The garden that needed weeding. A little bit more meant waiting to feel better so I could say, thank you, thank you, I am now capable. The day would end. Night would come and then I would do it all over again.
Eventually, you realise there isn’t a big moment where you decide you’re going to be okay. There is just the next thing you have to do. You realise that making sense of something that was senseless is part of the process. Who cares if she was more beautiful or remarkable or had something I didn’t? Who cares who this phantom woman was? It was never about her, and deep down I knew it. It was about him, and then it became about me: how do I move on without the person that wronged me? And that realisation was the start of a new day.
· · ·
I started this thinking about Aunty Flora and my grandmother. I thought about what it means to inherit someone you never knew. But somewhere along the way, Efuru became something else. Less about finding Nwapa and more about receiving something from her and discovering, years later, what it has to say to you.
Efuru ends with a vision of peace. Sleeping “soundly”, she dreams of Uhamiri, the woman of the lake. She is beautiful, wealthy and happy. She has lived for ages and has given women beauty and wealth, but she has no child.. I keep thinking, why then did the women worship her?
In the past year, I have felt more like myself, and more like who I have wanted to be, than I have in a long time. Things aren’t always easy, but I feel very happy with my decision to come back to myself. Life looks and feels delicious. Maybe this is what has changed in my reading of Efuru. I used to see so much of what was missing, the things that didn’t happen, the things that were taken away, the things that were supposed to make a life complete. In giving up a life of patriarchal marriage and motherhood, the women who worship Uhamiri gain something else: radical autonomy, peace and a new sense of self. The woman of the lake has no child, and yet she is beautiful. She is wealthy. She is happy. She is worshipped. Efuru tries to understand what that means and so do I.
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