Mabel Segun

Mabel Segun (born 1930) is a Nigerian poet, playwright and writer of short stories and children's books. She has also been a teacher, broadcaster, and a sports woman.[1]

Mabel Segun
Mabel Segun (left) in Strasbourg, 1983
Born1930 (age 90–91)
Ondo City, Nigeria
NationalityNigerian
EducationUniversity of Ibadan
OccupationPoet, playwright, children's writer, broadcaster

Biography

Born in Ondo City, Nigeria, she had her secondary school education at CMS Girl's School Lagos. She attended the University of Ibadan, graduating in 1953 with a BA in English, Latin and History. She taught these subjects in Nigerian schools, and later became Head of the Department of English and Social Studies and Vice-Principal at the National Technical Teachers' College, Yaba (Now Yaba College of Technology). Her first book, My Father's Daughter (1965), published in 1965, has been widely used as a literature text in schools all over the world, and her books have been translated into German, Danish, Norwegian and Greek.[1] Her work is included in the anthology Daughters of Africa (1992).[2]

Segun has championed children's literature in Nigeria through the Children's Literature Association of Nigeria, which she founded in 1978, and the Children's Documentation and Research Centre, which she set up in 1990 in Ibadan. She is also a fellow of the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany.[3]

Awards and honours

As a broadcaster, Segun won the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation 1977 Artiste of the Year award.[2]

In 2009, she received the Nigerian National Order of Merit Award for lifetime achievements.[4]

In 2015, the Society of Young Nigerian Writers under the leadership of Wole Adedoyin founded the Mabel Segun Literary Society (www.mabelsegunaliterarysociety.blogspot.com), aimed at promoting and reading the works of Mabel Segun.

In 2007, Segun was awarded the LNG Nigeria Prize for Literature.[1]

Selected bibliography

References
  1. Taiwo, Jide (2017-02-01). "At 87 yrs old, Mabel Segun is truly the last of her kind". Nigerian Entertainment Today. Retrieved 2018-06-29.
  2. Margaret Busby (ed.), Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent (1992), London: Vintage, 1993; p. 372.
  3. Mabel Segun's Citation and Summary of Achievements. Nigerian National Merit Awards, Government of Nigeria.
  4. "NNOM Laureates - Humanities" Archived 2016-11-05 at the Wayback Machine, 2009.
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