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Women have done amazing things, and deserve to be recognized. Nigerian women are their own force to reckon with!
Notable & Notorious Nigerian Women is an all-ages coloring book filled with 28 illustrations, and bios featuring 33 extraordinary Nigerian women from the past and the present. It is created by 3 Nigerian artists; an 8-year old Nigerian girl, her Igbo Mother Nkeiruka Oruche, and Nigerian-based Illustrator Amina Gimba.
This project was born out of our desire to know and share more about these trailblazing women, who have put their lives on the line for justice, paved paths in many fields, created new lanes, and become local and global icons. Through this book, you get to know real-life superheroes including Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Ladi Dosei Kwali, Aba Women Revolters, Mosunmola Abudu, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Blessing Okagbare, Ituen Basi, Yemi Alade and many many more.
The Book
The book is 8.5 x 11 inches, wire-bound paperback, which allows for ease of removing individual pages. Each coloring page is printed on 100lb uncoated paper with blank backs to avoid bleeding onto another image. Each page brings each woman into focus, with an illustration and a short bio inviting readers to know more about them. Your colors, whether watercolor, marker, crayon, ink, chalk, or pencil will them bring the women on the pages to life.
This is a perfect gift for any person who wants to be artistically expressive, and learn about more women who rule!
Why this book?
I, Nkeiruka, am an Igbo-Nigerian-American raising two children in the United States. I feel empowered by being able to share parts of myself and my culture. My co-creator, ZioraMmachi, is my first child, and a ravenous reader, who loves to learn about her various cultures, and keep up with current and past topics. It is also important that I share stories of women, because we are often left out of historical narratives, and/or our positions in society relegated to very specific and limited roles.
After years of reading and exploring many books of all kinds, one day Ziora, said to me “Mom wouldn’t it be cool if we made a coloring book about Nigerian women?" My response was an immediate "Yes!". This was a perfect way for me to share with her about the people who inspire me. Little did I know, I was in for a lot of learning myself, because some of these women I hadn’t heard about, and some I knew a bit about but I got to learn more.
Creating the Book
At 8 going on 9 years old, Ziora showed her skills as an amazing researcher, curator, writer, and editor, digging through bios and names of women, sorting demographic info, selecting biographies that she felt inspired by, and giving visionary feedback about the illustrations.
Making the book took over 9 months of research, compilation, editing, illustrations, design and revision. Additionally, Nigeria as an ethnically and culturally diverse nation, with over 350 distinct ethnic groups, put us to task to ensure we reflected this cultural diversity as best we could. We also had to select women representing various occupational areas and efforts, from science, to politics, to art, and humanities. From an initial list of over 170 women, we kept cutting it down until we got to 33. We decided that since the list of Notable & Notorious women was virtually endless, we would need to make even more books after this one!
Through our family friend Sital-ba-nat, we got connected to Amina Gimba, and were really excited, because Amina’s art is so rich, and beautiful, and we would be able to work with another Nigerian artist who is also passionate about women being in the spotlight. After conversations, that included selecting illustration style, and our collaboration approach, we got started! To complete the book, we also worked with another amazing artist, designer & illustrator Bruna Alves to create the layout, and get it print ready.
Because supporting local economies is important to us, we are working with a local print shop in the San Francisco Bay Area (where we live) to bring the books to life.
The creation and production process has been really illuminating, and after from hours and hours of research, conversations, revisions and legwork, we are happy to now share with you this book with you, and make beautiful art together!