SIN IS A PUPPY THAT FOLLOWS YOU HOME by Balaraba Ramat Yakubu

Translated by Aliyu Kamal

All but unknown in the English speaking world, Nigerian author Balaraba Ramat Yakubu is a superstar of Hausa literature. It’s fitting, then, that one of her books was the first in that language ever translated into English. Sin Is a Puppy… is a scathing morality tale wrapped in the narrative fineries of riotous soap opera shenanigans. From what I gather, it’s a prime example of littattafan soyyaya (love literature), a popular mode of Hausa storytelling that has its roots in Hindu cinema.

At its heart, Sin Is a Puppy… is a revenge tale par excellence. Virtuous Rabi has her life turned upside down when her husband, Alhaji Abdu, takes Delu as his second wife. Delu is nasty and jealous, while their husband is a pompous arse. When the women fall out, Abdu divorces Rabi, and damns her and their children to a life of penury. But Allah has a way of setting things right, and what follows is a glorious soup of polygamy, ancient curses, family scandal and comeuppance. Yakubu packs a Dostoevskian amount of melodrama into less than a hundred and thirty pages, ripping the Nigerian patriarchy to shreds in the process.

Preachy but joyous!

#WomenInTranslationMonth

Sin Is a Puppy That Follows You Home by Balaraba Ramat Yakubu (Tr. Aliyu Kamal)
Blaft Publications, 2012
126 pages