Simi Bedford

Simi Bedford is a Nigerian novelist. Her best-known work is Yoruba Girl Dancing (1991).[1]

Biography

Bedford was born in Nigeria to parents who had come there from Sierra Leone.[2] Her great-grandparents were from Nigeria and were rescued from a slave ship.[3] Bedford spent her early years in Lagos, before being sent to Britain for her education,[4] attending boarding-school there from the age of six.[5]

She read Law at Durham University, and subsequently worked in the media, including as a radio presenter and a television researcher.[5] Living in London, she married and raised three children.[4] She is now divorced from her artist husband, Martin Bedford, but they still maintain a friendly relationship, even sharing space together in a house in Devon.[6]

Bedford's debut novel Yoruba Girl Dancing is semi-autobiographical, recounting the experience of a Nigerian girl's education in Britain.[7] Her second novel, Not With Silver (2007), is historical fiction, focusing on mid-18th-century West Africa, slavery and court intrigue.[8] Not With Silver is unique among books about slavery in depicting the lives of people in Africa before they were enslaved.[3] The Spectator′s reviewer concluded: "This relentlessly honest book has no false or sentimental notes, absolutely no prettifying. A black warrior facing unexpected danger is taught to imagine the worst, ‘look the leopard in the eye.’ Simi Bedford does just that. A brave and uncomfortable labour of love."[9]

Bibliography

References

  1. "Simi Bedford: 'Yoruba Girl Dancing' and 'Not With Silver'". Afro Republic. 2 August 2015. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
  2. Simi Bedford interview on Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4, 25 July 2007. YouTube.
  3. 1 2 "Bedford's 'Complete' Slave Picture". BBC News. 3 September 2007. Retrieved 4 February 2016.
  4. 1 2 Cooper, Brenda (2011). Stories Fly: A Collection of African Fiction Written in Europe and the USA. New Africa Books. p. 60. ISBN 9780864866080.
  5. 1 2 "Simi Bedford", Black British Women Writers.
  6. Hodgkinson, Liz (20 July 2015). "Divorced? You Can Be Friends With Your Ex. I Should Know.". The Telegraph. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
  7. Griswold, Wendy (2000). Bearing Witness: Readers, Writers, and the Novel in Nigeria. Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology. pp. 26–27. ISBN 978-0691058290.
  8. Dabydeen, David (30 August 2007). "Not With Silver, by Simi Bedford". The Independent. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
  9. Digby Durrant, "Pity the oppressed; fear the oppressed", The Spectator, 7 November 2007.

External links


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