Recent Activities of the Literature Bureau, Zaria, Northern Nigeria

Abstract

Opening ParagraphThe Literature Bureau was originally started, in 1930, by the Education Department of Northern Nigeria, as a Translation Bureau. Its main function at first was to produce Hausa text-books for use in schools, but in the years before the war it was trying to lay the foundation of a more general literature for the Hausa-speaking people. In January 1939 a Hausa paper was started with the title Gaskiya Ta Fi Kwabo, and an Assistant District Officer was attached to the Bureau to supervise its publication and business side. But in 1940, owing to reduction in staff, such a man could no longer be spared, and the paper had to be run without him.