| Intro | Nigerian writer |
| Is |
Author Writer |
| From | Nigeria |
| Type | Literature |
| Gender | female |
| Birth |
1950, Borno State |
| Age | 71 years |
Zaynab Alkali (born 1950 Tura-Wazila, Borno State) is a Nigerian novelist, poet and short story writer. She is regarded as the first woman novelist from Northern Nigeria.
Life
Alkali was born in Tura-Wazila in Borno State in 1950. She graduated from Bayero University Kano with a BA in 1973. She obtained a doctorate in African Studies in the same university and became the principal of Shekara Girls’ Boarding School. She went on to be a lecturer in English at two universities in Nigeria.
She married the former Vice-chancellor of the University of Maiduguri, Mohammed Nur Alkali, and they had six children.
She rose to be a dean in the Faculty of arts at Nasarawa State University in Keffi, where she taught creative writing.
She is regarded as the first woman novelist from Northern Nigeria.
Works
- The Stillborn, Lagos: Longman (Drumbeats), 1984, ISBN 978-0-582-78600-4
- The Virtuous Woman, Longman Nigeria, 1987, ISBN 978-978-139-589-5
- Cobwebs & Other Stories, Lagos: Malthouse Press, 1997, ISBN 978-978-0230296.
- The Descendants, Tamaza, 2005, ISBN 978-978-2104-73-1
- The Initiates, 2007, ISBN 978-978-029-767-1.
Career
She worked in the University of Maiduguri as a senior lecturer in the English department where she worked for twenty years. Later on she left the University of Maiduguri to the National Primary Health Care Development Agency in Abuja, where she worked for three years until she left to work at Nasarawa State University.
Edited
- Zaynab Alkali, Al Imfeld (eds.), Vultures in the Air: Voices from Northern Nigeria, Ibadan-Kaduna-Lagos: Spectrum Books, 1995, ISBN 978-978-2462-60-2
Awards
Association of Nigerian Authors(ANA) Literary Prize, 1985