Elizabeth Isichei

Isichei was born Elizabeth Mary Allo in Tauranga, New Zealand, on 22 March 1939, the daughter of Albert (an agricultural scientist) and Lorna Allo.^[2][3] She was educated at Tauranga College, and attained the highest marks in New Zealand in the 1955 university entrance scholarship examinations.^[4] She went on to study at the University of Canterbury, from where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1960 and won a senior university scholarship.^[5][6] She then completed a Master of Arts with first-class honours in history at Victoria University of Wellington in 1961.^[2] Her honours thesis formed the basis of her book, Political Thinking and Social Experience, published in 1964.^[7] She won a Commonwealth Scholarship and, after a brief period as a temporary assistant lecturer in history at the University of Canterbury, undertook doctoral studies at Nuffield College, Oxford.^[8][9] Her DPhil thesis, completed in 1967, was titled Quakers and society in Victorian England.^[10]

At Oxford, Allo met Peter Isichei, a chemical pathologist. The couple became engaged in 1963,^[11] and married on 23 July 1964, going on to have five children.^[2][9]

Elizabeth Isichei was a professor in the Department of History at the University of Jos in Nigeria from 1976, and was general editor for Jos Oral History and Literature Texts.^[2] She has said that having both a family and career "would not have been possible if my husband had not gone to any lengths to help and encourage me".^[9] She was a visiting fellow at the University of Canterbury in 1984,^[9] and in 1992 was appointed a professor of religious studies at the University of Otago.^[12][13] On her retirement from Otago in 2006, she was accorded the title of professor emeritus.^[13]

Her works and books are centred on Christianity in Africa and the history of Nigeria particularly the Igbo people,^[14] including a biography of Michael Tansi, the first Nigerian Trappist monk.^[9] She also wrote on contemporary developments in New Zealand Catholicism, and on the religious meanings of Colin McCahon's art.^[15]

In 1992, Isichei was awarded a Doctor of Letters degree by the University of Canterbury.^[13][16] She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1997, but no longer holds that fellowship.^[17]

Before going to Oxford in 1962, Allo established a reputation as a poet, with her work appearing in publications including the Listener, Landfall, Comment and the Poetry Yearbook.^[18] She returned to poetry in the 1990s, and her poems were published in the Listener, Winterspin, and various anthologies,^[18] as well as her own published collections.^[19]

Isichei's husband, Peter Isichei, died in 2023.^[20]

• 1964: Political Thinking and Social Experience: Some Christian Interpretations of the Roman Empire, University of Canterbury Publications
• 1970: Victorian Quakers, Oxford University Press^[21]
• 1973: The Ibo People and the Europeans: The Genesis of a Relationship, to 1906, St. Martin's
• 1976: A History of the Igbo People,^[22] St. Martin's
• 1977: A History of West Africa since 1800, Africana^[23]
• 1977: Igbo Worlds: An Anthology of Oral History and Historical Descriptions, Institute for the Study of Human Issues^[24]
• 1981: Entirely for God: The Life of Michael Iwene Tansi, Macmillan Nigeria
• 1982: Studies in the History of Plateau State, Nigeria, Macmillan
• 1983: A History of Nigeria, Longman
• 1995: A History of Christianity in Africa: From Antiquity to the Present, Africa World Press
• 1997: A History of African Societies to 1870, Cambridge University Press
• 2002: Voices of the Poor in Africa, University of Rochester Press (Rochester, NY)
• 2004: The Religious Traditions of Africa: A History, Raeger (Westport, CT)
• 2005: Stoptide, Steele Roberts (New Zealand)