Flora Nwapa was a novelist, poet, and professor born in 1931 in Oguta, Nigeria.

She was educated at the University of Ibadan and earned her Diploma in Education at the University of Edinburgh.

Nwapa worked as Assistant Registrar at the University of Lagos and, after the end of the Nigerian Civil War in 1970, accepted the Cabinet Office position as Minister of Health and Social Welfare.

Her first book, Efuru was first published by Heinneman in 1966 at the suggestion of Chinua Achebe. It became the first book to be published in Britain by a female Nigerian writer, launching her literary career.

Alongside writing novels, poetry, and children's books, Nwapa founded Tana Press and the Flora Nwapa Company as a way to encourage literature for and by women. She continued to work as a visiting professor, lecturing at New York University, Trinity College and the University of Maiduguri.

Flora Nwapa died in 1993.