by Balaraba Ramat Yakubu
translated from the Hausa by Aliyu Kamal
cover image by Glenna Gordon
"Utterly addictive" —Nnedi Okorafor
Beginning in the late 1980s, northern Nigeria saw a boom in popular fiction written in the Hausa language.
Known as littattafan soyayya ("love literature"), the books are often inspired by Hindi films—which have been hugely popular among Hausa speakers for decades—and are primarily written by women. They have sparked a craze among young adult readers as well as a backlash from government censors and book-burning conservatives.
Sin Is a Puppy That Follows You Home is an Islamic soap opera complete with polygamous households, virtuous women, scheming harlots, and black magic.
It's the first full-length novel by a woman ever translated from Hausa to English.
And it's quite unlike anything you've ever read before.
Other reviews:
Subhashini Navaratnam's review in Pop Matters
Anike's review in Muslimah Media Watch (Warning: Spoilers!)
Aishwarya Subramanian's review in The Sunday Guardian
Deepa Dharmadhikari's review in Live Mint
About the Author
Balaraba Ramat Yakubu published her first novel in 1987, and has been one of the bestselling Hausa authors ever since. She has also written, directed and produced a number of films for Kannywood, the Hausa-language film industry based in Kano, Nigeria.
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