BEYOND THE BOKO HARAM INSURGENCY, WOMEN IN KANO ARE TRANSFORMING THE NORTHERN SOCIETY USING LOVE LITERATURE

Photo Credit – Glenna Gordon

In North, child marriage is not uncommon. Children are married off at ages as early as 11 years old, practically having no say in their marital lives. Women in Kano are churning out a large number of content to depict that and much more. This has created a booming industry of Hausa romance literature called”Littattafan Soyayya” (love literature).

This surprisingly rising number of women writers is slowly changing the standing of the northern women in their society.

However, It is not always about love. Some of their stories teach morals, a lot are about romance and deal with the issue of child marriage and its consequences..

One of the most famous and accessible Hausa writers is Yakubu. She wrote the novel “Sin is the Puppy that Follows You Home” Her novel , is the first Hausa literature written by a woman to be translated to English. It is available on Kindle.

Like most of the other writers, Yakubu’s work addresses the subject of child marriage and its consequences. One of such novels is “Who will Marry an Illiterate Woman?”

These writers also play the role of agony aunts. They leave on their numbers on their novels so people can call them.

New York-based photographer Glenna Gordon who has extensively documented this invisible industry in new book “Diagram of the Heart.” gives an inside shot. ” When I was hanging out with author Rabi Talle, she would have four phones, all with different numbers, and they’d be ringing constantly.”

Indeed despite being antagonized (the Governor of Kano state Ibrahim Shekarau publicly burned love literature publicly), these writers have become forces to reckon with.


Full report on edition.cnn.com

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