MARKET LITERATURE IN THE VERNACULAR: THE RISE OF SOYAYYA BOOKS
In the last six years there has been a near-revolution in the publishing of Hausa literature. A whole new genre of littatafan soyayya, love stories, has emerged, published by authors themselves and sold through markets and small shops all over the northern region. During the time of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), when the cost of imported goods (such as paper) has been soaring and the purchasing power of incomes has been collapsing, soyayya authors have published over 200 books, and created a system of publishing and distribution that keeps book prices within the range of ordinary people. Earlier books have achieved the status of 'best-seller', giving their authors a great deal of fame. Many of them are read out on the radio, on the extremely popular programme Shafa Labari Shuni (meaning 'a person exaggerates what he hears'), and adaptations of successful books form a significant proportion of the vibrant new market in Hausa videos. While the debate rages over whether soyayya books are a beneficial addition to Hausa culture, their great achievement has been to create a popular Hausa reading public for fiction.
In his major survey of Hausa literature Furniss (1996: 54-5) argues that soyayya writers 'appear to owe more to the English language publishing of Mills and Boon, and James Hadley Chase. . . than to any Hausa precedent'. Furniss is correct in assessing the innovativeness of this new style of literature but mistaken in seeing it as based solely on Western precedents. Soyayya authors and their critics cite many sources for their books, including English romances and Hollywood 'best-sellers', but they also admit the important influence of Arabian tales, Nigerian romance magazines and Indian films. I concentrate on the influence of Indian films, not to ignore these other media, but as part of my larger point in analysing the flow of media within and between non-Western countries. The great appeal of Indian films across class, education and gender, along with the recognised similarities in culture, make them a significant precedent for contemporary writers and readers.
Soyayya books are pamphlets tittle more than fifty pages in length. Many run to two or three parts in order to keep costs down. They are badly typeset, badly printed and, from the point of view of critics, badly edited and written. Furniss argues that authors adopted the practice of publishing their own work, using offset litho printers, following the example of religious ajami(18) poets. Print runs are typically small, running from 2,000 to 5,000, but successful books will go into multiple printings. Originally, soyayya books were sold from shops and vendors selling school books. As they have become more established it is not uncommon to see market stalls devoted solely to soyayya books, or to see hawkers wandering round markets and business districts balancing books on their heads. The authors, unlike earlier generations of Hausa writers, come from neither an elite nor even a well educated background. Some have never received Western education and most of those who have, left after primary level, remaining only in Islamic schools, and consequently their knowledge of English, and with it their integration into existing literary culture, is often poor. Women make up a significant proportion of soyayya authors and some, like Hajiya Balaraba Ramat Yakubu (Alhaki Kwikwiyo, meaning 'Retribution is like a puppy, it follows its owner', 1990a, and Budurwar Zuciya, 'The heart's desire', 1990b), are among the most famous soyayya authors. Secondary-school leavers make up a significant proportion of the readers (though perhaps not as great a proportion as people claim) and there is a strong association in the public mind between soyayya books and women readers. Despite this, many young men I knew were avid readers of the literature, and the high percentage of men who write fan letters to the authors suggests that there is a significant male relationship.
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