Nwazuluwa Onuekwuke "Zulu" Sofola (22 June 1935 – 5 September 1995)[1] was the first published female Nigerian playwright and dramatist.[2] Sofola was also a university teacher and became the first female Professor of Theater Arts in Africa.[3]
Nwazuluwa Onuekwuke Sofola[4] was born in the former Bendel State to Nwaugbade Okwumabua and Chief Ogana Okwumabua who were Igbo from Issele-Uku, Aniocha North Local Government Area, presently in Delta State. She attended Federal Government Primary School in Asaba and the Baptist Girls High School in Agbor all in Delta State.[citation needed] Due to her outstanding performance in school, she was awarded a scholarship to complete her high school education in Nashville, Tennessee.[5][failed verification] Spending her adolescence and early womanhood in the US, she studied at Southern Baptist Seminary, earned a BA in English at Virginia Union University in Richmond, Virginia in 1959.[citation needed] She obtained her MA in Drama (Play writing and Production) from The Catholic University of America in Washington DC in the year 1965.[1] She returned to Nigeria in 1966, and became a lecturer in the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Ibadan, Oyo State, where she obtained a PhD in Theatre Arts (Tragic Theory) in 1977.[6]
Her plays "range from historical tragedy to domestic comedy and use both traditional and modern African setting".[7] She uses "elements of magic, myth and ritual to examine conflicts between traditionalism and modernism in which male supremacy persists."[8] She was considered one of the most distinguished women in Nigerian literature.[9] She remains a source of inspiration to young African writers. Sofola's most frequently performed plays are Wedlock of the Gods (1972) and The Sweet Trap (1977),[8] She died in 1995 at the age of 60.