Purple Hibiscus (2003) and Sky-High Flames (2005), two debut novels (belonging to the genre of the Bildungsroman) by third generation Nigerian-Igbo writers Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Unoma Azuah, resonate with Nigerian-Igbo author Flora Nwapa’s Efuru (1966). At the beginning of the 21 st century the latter remains a leading foundational figure for contemporary Nigerian-Igbo writers who refer to her more or less implicitly. Adichie and Azuah, who are openly feminist, dialogue with their predecessor, who was ambivalent regarding feminism, as were her female contemporaries on the continent. A feminine, or even feminist response to Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958), Efuru enabled women and female-related issues to move from the margins to the centre of the narration and literary considerations, which allowed contemporary female writers – Adichie and Azuah among them – to describe in turn the processes of female identity construction within the Nigerian-Igbo patriarchal society.