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A review by kjcharles
Sin is a Puppy That Follows you Home by Aliyu Kamal, Balaraba Ramat Yakubu
Well, now. So this is the first English translation of a Nigerian Hausa-language novel in the genre of popular fiction called love literature, which is for and by women and caused some kerfuffle among people who think women shouldn't be reading this shocking stuff. This is all ringing quite the bell.
It is the purest soap. I mean, you could wash your clothes in this. Crappy abusive husband divorces wife, abandons kids, alienates family and friends. His ex wife and daughter are the focuses of the novel, more or less, although as soon as the daughter marries a lovely bloke, the perspective starts sliding to him. It's a purely ridiculous story and the translation reads pretty declarative and workaday (may be the translator, may be the original style) but I found it completely compelling. I wanted to know what happened, which is basically the essence of storytelling.
And it isn't wish fulfilment or whatever. It looks like it's going to be a story about the abused wife triumphant and then shitbag dude loses everything, and everyone forces her to go back to him! The entire society! Because he's sorry for what he did *once he's lost everything and is reduced to penury and needs to be looked after*, so apparently she *still* has to look after the useless fucker who starved and divorced her and abandoned her kids! Argh! (Which, it is clear, she is forced to do by social pressure not innate goodness or forgiveness. I hope she ruins the rest of his life, and we do rather get the impression she will, but bloody hell. . It also looks like the daughter is a saintly character but she can be pretty vicious, including some savage physical fights.
This is an incredibly violent book, in fact. Men beating their wives is absolute standard practice and even the lovely gentle hero does it (to his Evil First Wives, there are a lot of Evil Women in this.). There's also plently of domestic violence between wives and children. The situation of women in a polygamous society is also a big theme (savage infighting and resentment occurs), as is the ease with which wives can be divorced and discarded. The novel treats all this in a "how it is" way, like this is standard practice for people's lives. See also the total lack of social safety net and the pressures of cultural practices that mean the urgent need for money is a constant pulse throughout. I mean, this is in no way an issues book, because these aren't 'issues', these are the lives being lived. But it's horrifying, or it would be if the narrative didn't move breezily on.
So. This is not stylistically an amazing novel, but it's got that indefinable quality of "absolutely must know what happens". I would totally glom these if more were published and I hope they will be. I obviously don't know how accurate a window this is on Nigerian Muslim life, any more than EastEnders is accurate for London or most historical romances are accurate for the Regency, although there are quite a few resonances between this and the other Nigerian novels I read last year. Can I here recommend [b:I Do Not Come to You by Chance|6265288|I Do Not Come to You by Chance|Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1293037353s/6265288.jpg|6448541] which is significantly better written and an absolutely brilliant concept (it's about 419 email scammers) but shares the intense readability and soap quality.
Note: I know 'readable' and 'soap opera' are often used to damn with faint praise. But I'm a romance novelist, and I know how extremely hard it is to hook readers into a multi-character story and glue them to the narrative, and there is nothing faint about it when I praise those skills.
Other note: OMG the title. OMG.
It is the purest soap. I mean, you could wash your clothes in this. Crappy abusive husband divorces wife, abandons kids, alienates family and friends. His ex wife and daughter are the focuses of the novel, more or less, although as soon as the daughter marries a lovely bloke, the perspective starts sliding to him. It's a purely ridiculous story and the translation reads pretty declarative and workaday (may be the translator, may be the original style) but I found it completely compelling. I wanted to know what happened, which is basically the essence of storytelling.
And it isn't wish fulfilment or whatever. It looks like it's going to be a story about the abused wife triumphant
This is an incredibly violent book, in fact. Men beating their wives is absolute standard practice and even the lovely gentle hero does it (to his Evil First Wives, there are a lot of Evil Women in this.). There's also plently of domestic violence between wives and children. The situation of women in a polygamous society is also a big theme (savage infighting and resentment occurs), as is the ease with which wives can be divorced and discarded. The novel treats all this in a "how it is" way, like this is standard practice for people's lives. See also the total lack of social safety net and the pressures of cultural practices that mean the urgent need for money is a constant pulse throughout. I mean, this is in no way an issues book, because these aren't 'issues', these are the lives being lived. But it's horrifying, or it would be if the narrative didn't move breezily on.
So. This is not stylistically an amazing novel, but it's got that indefinable quality of "absolutely must know what happens". I would totally glom these if more were published and I hope they will be. I obviously don't know how accurate a window this is on Nigerian Muslim life, any more than EastEnders is accurate for London or most historical romances are accurate for the Regency, although there are quite a few resonances between this and the other Nigerian novels I read last year. Can I here recommend [b:I Do Not Come to You by Chance|6265288|I Do Not Come to You by Chance|Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1293037353s/6265288.jpg|6448541] which is significantly better written and an absolutely brilliant concept (it's about 419 email scammers) but shares the intense readability and soap quality.
Note: I know 'readable' and 'soap opera' are often used to damn with faint praise. But I'm a romance novelist, and I know how extremely hard it is to hook readers into a multi-character story and glue them to the narrative, and there is nothing faint about it when I praise those skills.
Other note: OMG the title. OMG.