Paper short abstract:

The Kano Market Literature is a genre of African romantic fiction popularized in the commercial city of Kano, northern Nigeria, for which it earned the label of ‘Kano Market Literature’. This paper discusses the trajectory of the genre from printed to social media due to Islamic religious censoring.

Paper long abstract:

The Kano Market Literature is a genre of African romantic fiction popularized in the commercial city of Kano, northern Nigeria, for which it earned the label of ‘Kano Market Literature’. Its halcyon days were from 1981 to about 2015. It was written exclusively in the Hausa language and self-printed as cheaply as possible, often in two to three multipart series to cut the cost of production. The genre was extremely popular among youth, and mainly female readers. The subject matter was diverse, but rooted mainly in romantic plotlines. The popularity and penetration of the literature among youth social spaces in northern Nigeria created concerns about literary finesse and cultural representation as well as what Kano’s Islamicate culture considered moral temptations of the stories. The constant censoring of the fiction by authorities and harangues by Muslim clerics led to a drop in the production of the fiction over the years. From mid 2010s, however, Hausa youth became aware of the ease in accessibility of the internet and its technologies including social networks and social media. The genre then became reincarnated in online forms – free from censorship of whatever kind. This paper traces the trajectory of the genre from print media to its liberation in online media, with specific focus on Facebook and other literary platforms.