Hausa literature rising

Elnathan John, a writer and columnist with Sunday Trust, has just finished writing a novel titled A Star Without A Name. It is named after a poem of  the same title, written  by Jalaludin Rumi. The novel will be published in the second quarter of 2015 by Cassava Republic, a  publishing house in Abuja, run […]

Elnathan John, a writer and columnist with Sunday Trust, has just finished writing a novel titled A Star Without A Name. It is named after a poem of  the same title, written  by Jalaludin Rumi. The novel will be published in the second quarter of 2015 by Cassava Republic, a  publishing house in Abuja, run by the  creative duo of  Bibi Bakare-Yusuf and Jeremy Weath.
On A Star Without A Name, Jeremy says “It’s a tale of an Almajiri growing up in Northern Nigeria, and is a human story of the pressures and difficulties of growing up in northern Nigeria. This is the story of a child who grows up, a street child whom nobody knows. He joins a  gang, his mother  is ill and his brothers have become Shia.”
Bibi Bakare-Yusuf says Cassava Republic has big hopes for the forthcoming book “The book is written  in English,and we want to translate it into Hausa as an experiment.” On reasons for the choice of Hausa, she adds “It has infrastructure around it,which can support a publicity machinery that would allow people to hear about  the book, if it is published in that local language.”
She explains that evidence of this rich infrastructure is the fact that there are many  radio stations  broadcasting in Hausa in the country, there is the weekly newspaper Aminiya, published by Media Trust, and  then there is the BBC Hausa service.

She refers to the Chinese Hausa service, the German as well as the Dutch Hausa services which are all part of the infrastructure. “It is huge. Its a good start for us to put  a literary novel into the local language, to show that its possible to begin that conversation, that our novel will be accessible to other Nigerians who may not be literate in English. The assumption is that if you are not literate in English, you are classified as illiterate, and we contest that. That idea is a disservice,a kind of symbolic violence on those people.”
Finding a translator had  been a bit of a problem. But  they found one who is on the staff of a  major  news organisation  with headquarters in the United Kingdom.

Her words “We thought we would pay for a translator, only to realise that there are only few people who are qualified translators in local languages. We need the sum of 3 million Naira to pay the translator. To some Nigerian business organisations, the sum may be miniscule, but to us as a publishing house, that’s what we will need to publish 3 or 4 books in English.”
Their effort in this regard is something like an experiment. On this  Bibi Bakare-Yusuf says “We want to test it to see if we can get support to fund the translation like they do in other parts of the world.In other countries, governments would fund translations. If we were in the UK, for example, and we wanted to translate a book from English to French, the French government would fund the effort. But in Nigeria, where would you go to seek funding? If today, I want to publish a book from English to French, or vice versa, there is a clear place I know I can go to. In Nigeria, I don’t know where to go, and this situation does not encourage publishing in local languages. “Both argue for a  government subsidy that would assist if an individual wishes to translate a work from English into  any of the Nigerian  languages. This is at once a boost for such  indigenous languages they argue.

On the situation of languages in Nigeria, Jeremy opines “The sad reality is that  there are over 500 languages in Nigeria today, and in our lifetime, most of them are going to disappear.We are living in the  illusion that most of them are going to carry on. In fact, not only are most of these 500 languages going to disappear in the next few years, even major languages like Igbo are going to die out.”
He speaks positively of  Hausa “The language is not under any similar kind of threat.At the same time we have the Bayero University Kano, coming up with new words in Hausa, which is good. It  is a potentially literary language, and there are potential works of literature that can be written in Hausa, or translated into Hausa, which will further enrich  the language, and make it rise higher than the position it occupies  now.”
He speaks on the role of publishing houses on the matter “We refuse to be passive about these things. We have a role to play, supported by other people. We have to make sure these languages  don’t  just wither away,but actually grow.”

Bibi Bakare-Yusuf would like state governments in northern Nigeria to purchase copies of the novel for educational institutions studying Hausa, when the translated version is out. But she emphasises “the need to spread the word. To begin a conversation about the importance of training people to speak in both languages, so there is proficiency in both. A book like this would help to guide that effort. This is not the only book we want to translate. We have got a whole  lot of children’s books we would like to translate into Hausa.”
On a final note, they repeat “We also accept individual donations, and everybody will be recognised  in the book. We need 3 million Naira to pay the translator who would express A Star Without A Name in Hausa. We will do everything else, like paying for the printing.”
Bibi Bakare-Yusuf adds “This is an opportunity for state governments to buy a literary work of fiction that’s going to become globally big. A book which will go places internationally. We want a situation where when the book is on sale here, it will outsell the US  and UK  markets.”