The Writer and Society: A Literary Study of Balaraba Ramat Yakubu’s Reflections on Hausa Society

Abstract

Styles were used by different authors to ensure a proper channeling of messages from their novels to the targeted readers. Balaraba Ramat Yakubu who is among the few reputable Hausa women authors combined the position of mother, elder, leader, and responsible married woman. At the time she strived hard to acquire what can sustain her family and relatives she wrote many Hausa fiction books in which she depicted her wisdom and opinions in exposing the need to have a decent society base on her life experience, a society that respects women dignity, display honesty, discipline and promote a violent free society and encourage respect for one another. Balaraba Ramat Yakubu has tried to symbolize some of these issues in her books as her contribution towards sustaining responsible society in Nigeria, Africa, or the world at large. Styles as used by authors is a toolbox in the manipulation of their talents to expose their mission in their works. Balaraba Ramat used her styles to display her opinions on how different dimensions of our lives should be. This paper analyzes how Balaraba Ramat Yakubu addressed some of these issues and analyzes them. The paper used her Hausa novels and the academic works done on them and other things related to her. The paper, however, makes contact with both primary and secondary sources for further justifications. It however concludes with the findings that in Hausa society, men remain behind their wives in whatever they do to earn their lively hood as long as their strives do not contradict Islam and Hausa culture. Again going by the power of the pen, the paper also encourages writers especially women to use their pen as their powerful weapon to fight all forms of insurgency which rendered hundreds of thousands of women and children victims of circumstances in many African countries.