Françoise UGOCHUKWU An author from France and Nigeria writing in French [Return to French — Page originale en français]

Françoise Parent Ugochukwu, more commonly known as Ijeoma (which means "have a good journey" in Igbo) by her family and friends, was born in 1949 in Valence, France. After attending grammar schools in Romans and Tournon, she went to the University of Grenoble, obtaining successively a Degree in Classical Literature and a Degree in English followed by a Master's Degree in French Literature in 1971 and a Doctorate in 1974. She lived in Nigeria from 1972 to 1995 where she taught French at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. Due to political instability in Nigeria during this time she, together with her husband and children, moved to England. She is now (2010) teaching at the Open University.

Publications

Contes igbos du Nigéria, de la brousse à la rivière [Igbo tales from Nigeria, from the bush to the river]. Paris: Karthala, 1992. (351p.). ISBN 2 86537 298 7. Tales.

54 Igbo tales with French translation and annotations:
Why men have indented backs — Ashawanawana' oath — The Co-wives and the cooking pot — If you beat me, I will cry — The jealous children, the fish and the trumpet — The beast — The king of the mushrooms — The child with the belt — Two women go to the gods — Agbaya lives, dies and returns — The forgotten flute — Nwoye's bird — The warrior's death — The buffalo's horn — A dancing competition in the spirit world — The two friends — The Nne Orie vultures — The heir — The two sisters — How illnesses spread — The little girl and the evil spirit — A girl in love with a fish — Enendu's two journeys — The mother who waited for her son — The dance in the market where oranges are sold — The singing bones — The secret of the drowned child — The child who killed the crow — King Nwora's calabash — The python's eggs — The rainbow's son — The person who fought with his double — The placenta sauce — The striped rat and the pregnant woman — The water carriers — The iron bride — The widow's return — Why the vulture has a hairless neck — The little girl who set out to collect some wood — The woman who married a spirit — The children and the ogress — The forbidden lake — The woman who beat her husband — The calabash child — The python husband — What has happened? — The hated woman's son — The disablled bird — The orphan's apple tree — The young married couple — A hunt for the monkey — Thanks to the leopard's strength — The two women and the blacksmiths — The antelope and the farmer's wife.

La Source interdite [The Forbidden Spring]. Paris: EDICEF, 1984. (64p.). ISBN 2 850 69318 9. Children's novel.

Although the only available spring is a forbidden place, it does not stop the children from going there...

Une Poussière d'or [A Golden Dust]. Paris: EDICEF, 1987. (79p.). ISBN 2 850 69472 X. Children's novel.

A small town in Nigeria is suffering the assaults of modernisation and there seems to be nothing that anybody can do to stop it.

Chizoba dans la ville. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2006. (110p.). ISBN: 2 296 00486 5. Novel.

Contes igbo de la tortue (Nigeria). Paris: Karthala, 2006. (124p.). ISBN: 2 84586 745 X. Tales.

A la vitre des nuits. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2008. (72p.). ISBN: 978-2-296-06510-9. Poetry.

Biafra, la déchirure. Sur les traces de la guerre civile nigériane de 1967-1970. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2009. (214p.). ISBN: 978-2-296-08689-0. Study.

Le pays igbo du Nigeria. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2010. (352p.). ISBN: 978-2-296-12961-0. Préface de Graham Furniss. Study.

Torn Apart: The Nigerian Civil War and its Impact. Adonis & Abbey Publishers, 2010. ISBN: 9781906704766. Study.

Editor ([email protected])
The University of Western Australia/French
Created: 19 May 1999
Modified: 15 december 2010
Archived: 27 November 2013
https://aflit.arts.uwa.edu.au/UgochukwuFrancoiseEng.html