From Poetry to Prose: The Modern Hausa Novel

It would seem that the first Hausa novel appeared out of thin air. When R. M. East decided in 1933 that not enough reading material existed to promote literacy in the Hausa language, he set out to convince learned scholars, called malams, to create the Hausa novel. To the malams, the idea of fiction, a kind of literature not directly aimed at education or spiritual edification, "seemed very strange," remembers East.¹ Fiction belonged to the realm of folktales told by women to children; it ranked only slightly higher than the common lie. Malams, who were long familiar with writing, understood literature as a serious endeavor, used primarily for religious and moral exhortation and instruction. East proposed that the malams refrain from recreating folktales or the historic texts known as labari, yet worried that they had no models to work from. Given such an impossible choice, the malams did indeed turn to the literary models at hand—those of folktales, poetry, and historical non-fiction. Those models had far-reaching influence on what was to become the new genre of Hausa fiction.

East's competition resulted in the publication of five short novels. Although longer than folktales and written rather than spoken, four of the first five novels still employed one-dimensional characters such as tricksters and genies who performed in formulaic, tale-type adventures, and early critics despaired that Hausa novels would never break away from the influence of folklore. David Westley, in his analysis of the early novels, decried the form and characterization of Hausa literature as too reliant upon its folkloric underpinnings. Arguing that the episodic form of all the early novels limited the potential for meaning, that the flat, folktale-like characters lacked the rich heritage which supports the oral characters, and that the characters do not achieve the depth of introspection of Western full characters, Westley ultimately labeled the novels failed imitations of folktales.² He reserved praise only for Shaihu Umar, which succeeded because "it is the work that distances itself the most from the oral tradition."³ But Shaihu Umar, the one realistic novel, suffered from a different but equally fatal analysis. David Cosentino labeled the story a "literary dead end," as the story effectively created the perfect Muslim, thematically closing the topic to further discussion.⁴ Yet neither Cosentino nor Westley could foresee the imminent explosion of Hausa novels that began in the late 1970s and continues at a healthy rate today. The publication of perhaps a thousand Hausa novels in the last thirty years has proven those critics wrong in their estimation of Shaihu Umar. Neither understood that while the novel shied from its folkloric antecedents, it closely resembled another kind of oral tradition—that of the long standing craft of poetry. In reality, Shaihu Umar neither distanced itself from the oral tradition, nor did it mark the end of Hausa literature, but rather indicated the future direction of most modern novels. Beginning in the 1970s with Kitsen Rogo, Hausa fiction turned away from its folkloric influence and began to draw upon the historical traditions of both oral and written Hausa poetry. An analysis of a wide cross section of Hausa poetry as compared to three prize-winning novels reveals the similarities and obvious influence the earlier genre of poetry played on the emerging tradition of modern fiction.

Describing Hausa poetry, Neil Skinner wrote that "in general, the serious tradition of Hausa poetry and its concern with communal matters prevent the intrusion of much fantasy, except perhaps in a rather secondary role. The poet is concerned that his message be understood by the conscious minds of his listeners."⁵ As Hausa fiction grew to emulate poetry's more serious concerns, its use of fantasy, the earmark of folklore, faded into the distant past. Following in the tradition of Hausa poetry, the novels became utterly realistic, didactic in intent, serious in tone, and tenaciously political. Modern Hausa fiction had begun to find its own path, yet the connections to its poetic influences blur the genre's lines of self containment.

There are two kinds of poetry within Hausa...