Late Buchi Emecheta's life story told in Numbers

Nigerian-born writer, Florence Onyebuchi Emecheta, died yesterday in her sleep and tributes have been pouring in from all over the world, with many revealing things about the writer that was not popular knowledge. Below are some of her life stories told in numbers:11: The age at which she got engaged to Sylvester Onwordi.

16: Buchi got married to her betrothed, Sylvester at the age of sixteen.

5: The number of children she had. Buchi had two children with her husband in Nigeria then had three more after she moved to Britain to be with her husband who was schooling there.

22: The age at which she divorced from her abusive husband. Buchi's husband was never in support of her craft and burned the manuscript to her first book, The Bride Price. 

Her account of her abusive marriage and the straw that broke the camel's back was told by her and posted on BBC's Website: 

“I was the typical African woman, I'd done this privately, I wanted him to look at it, approve it and he said he wouldn't read it. And later he burnt the book ... and that was the day I said I'm going to leave this marriage and he said 'what for, that stupid book' and I said 'I just feel you just burn my child"

30: Buchi received an honours degree in sociology at the University of London at age 30. That she even had an education at all is a huge accomplishment because she was born into a family that did not believe in educating the girl child, so she stayed home while her brother went to school. She started school much later after convincing her father to let her.

72: Buchi died yesterday in London, Britain, at the age of 72. She would have been 73 on July 21.

May her creative soul rest in peace.