Mabel Segun, NNOM (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.

Biography

Born in

Ondo City Ondo Town is the second largest town in Ondo State, Nigeria. Ondo Town is the trade center for the surrounding region. Yams, cassava, grain and tobacco are grown. Cotton is also grown, and is used to weave cloth called Aso Oke fabric which is w ...

, Nigeria, she had her secondary school education at CMS Girl's School Lagos. She attended the

University of Ibadan The University of Ibadan (UI) is a public research university in Ibadan, Nigeria. The university was founded in 1948 as University College Ibadan, one of many colleges within the University of London. It became an independent university in 19 ...

, 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 Yaba College of Technology, popularly known as YABATECH, was founded in 1947, and is Nigeria's first higher educational institution. It is located in Yaba, Lagos. It has a student enrollment of over 16,000. Overview 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. Her work is included in the anthology '' Daughters of Africa'' (1992). Margaret Busby (ed.), '' Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent'' (1992), London: Vintage, 1993; p. 372. 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 Ibadan (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Oyo State, in Nigeria. It is the third-largest city by population in Nigeria after Lagos and Kano, with a total population of 3,649,000 as of 2021, and over 6 million people within its me ...

. She is also a fellow of the

International Youth Library The International Youth Library (IYL) (, IJB) in Munich is a library that specializes in the collection of children and youth literature from around the world in order to make them available to the public, focusing on the international community. ...

Munich, Germany Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

Awards and honours

As a broadcaster, Segun won the

Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation The Voice of Nigeria or VON is the official international broadcasting station of Nigeria. History Founded in 1961, the Voice of Nigeria began life as the External Service of the then Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (now Federal Radio Corpora ...

1977 Artiste of the Year award. In 2009, she received the

Nigerian National Order of Merit Award The Nigerian National Order of Merit Award (NNOM) is an academic award conferred on distinguished academicians and intellectuals who have made outstanding contributions to the academic, growth and development of Nigeria. The award is often conferred ...

for lifetime achievements."NNOM Laureates - Humanities"
, 2009. 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 Nigeria Prize for Literature is a Nigerian literary award given annually since 2004 to honor literary erudition by Nigerian authors. The award rotates among four genres; fiction, poetry, drama and children's literature, repeating the cycle every ...

Selected bibliography

*''My Father's Daughter'' (1965) *''Under the Mango Tree'' (co-edited) (1979) *''Youth Day Parade'' (1984) *''Olu and the Broken Statue'' (1985) *''Sorry, No Vacancy'' (1985) *''Conflict and Other Poems'' (1986) *''My Mother's Daughter'' (1986)
''Ping-Pong: Twenty-Five Years of Table Tennis'' (1989)''The First Corn'' (1989)''The Twins and the Tree Spirits'' (1990)''The Surrender and Other Stories'' (1995)
*''Readers' Theatre: Twelve Plays for Young People'' (2006)
''Rhapsody: A Celebration of Nigerian Cooking and Food Culture'' (2007)

References

External links

"Mabel Segun 1930 to the Present"
Facebook, 20 August 2012. {{DEFAULTSORT:Segun, Mabel 1930 births Living people Yoruba children's writers People from Ondo City University of Ibadan alumni 20th-century Nigerian women writers Nigerian women educators Yoruba educators English-language writers from Nigeria Yoruba poets Nigerian women poets Nigerian children's writers Writers from Ondo State Nigerian women children's writers Recipients of the Nigerian National Order of Merit Award 20th-century Nigerian poets Yoruba women writers St Anne's School, Ibadan alumni Nigeria Prize for Literature winners Yoruba people