An Exploration of the Canon of Hausa Prose Fiction in Hausa Language and Translation: The Literary Contest of 1933 as a Historical Reference

Chaibou Elhadji Oumarou

doi:10.4236/als.2017.51001

Abstract

The paper premises that the literary contest of 1933 has been a very important historical reference and a determining condition for the emergence of the canon of Hausa prose fiction (Furniss, 1991, 1996). As a consequence, my exploration is going to be directed first toward the role of the British colonial administration as the organizer of the literary contest and then toward the role played by the university critics in transforming the winning essays into a corpus of literary masterpieces, thus creating some of the conditions for the emergence and consolidation of the canon of the Hausa prose fiction in both the Hausa language and in translation into English.

Highlights

In the article entitled “Qu’est-ce qu’un classique africain?” published in 2005, Bernard Mouralis argues that such a question needs to be contextualized
The sixth criterion that has yet to be met is the international fame for the authors and their works even though Ruwan Bagaja and Shaihu Umar have already been translated from Hausa into English and have been taught in various universities in Africa and probably outside of Africa
Today it is safe to talk about a Hausa canon in the prose fiction in the Hausa language

Summary

Chaibou Elhadji Oumarou

How to cite this paper: Oumarou, C. An Exploration of the Canon of Hausa Prose Fiction in Hausa Language and Translation: The Literary Contest of 1933 as a Historical Reference.

Introduction

Concluding Remarks