Contemporary Authors

• Season of Crimson Blossoms Cassava Republic Press (London, England), 2016

1. Season of crimson blossoms LCCN 2016387320 Type of material Book Personal name Ibrahim, Abubakar Adam, author. Main title Season of crimson blossoms / Abubakar Adam Ibrahim Published/Produced [London] : Cassava Republic Press, [2016] ©2016 Description 313 pages ; 22 cm ISBN 9781911115007 (pbk.) 1911115006 (pbk.) CALL NUMBER PR9387.9.I22 I27 2016 CABIN BRANCH Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE 2. Season of crimson blossoms LCCN 2015409720 Type of material Book Personal name Ibrahim, Abubakar Adam Main title Season of crimson blossoms / Abubakar Adam Ibrahim Published/Produced Lagos : Parŕesia Books, 2015 Description 347 pages ; 20 cm ISBN 9789789499908 CALL NUMBER MLCS 2016/42585 CABIN BRANCH Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE

• Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abubakar_Adam_Ibrahim

  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim
  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim
  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim photo.jpg
  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim
  Born 1979
  Jos, Nigeria
  Nationality Nigerian
  Alma mater University of Jos
  Occupation Writer, journalist
  Notable work Season of Crimson Blossoms
  Awards 2016 NLNG Prize for Literature
  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim (born 1979) is a Nigerian creative writer and journalist.

  Contents [hide]
  1 Career
  2 Published works
  3 References
  4 External links
  Career[edit]
  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim was born in Jos, North-Central Nigeria, and holds a BA in Mass Communication from the University of Jos.[1]

  His debut short-story collection The Whispering Trees was longlisted for the inaugural Etisalat Prize for Literature in 2014,[2] with the title story shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing.[3]

  Ibrahim has won the BBC African Performance Prize[4] and the ANA Plateau/Amatu Braide Prize for Prose. He is a Gabriel Garcia Marquez Fellow (2013),[5] a Civitella Ranieri Fellow (2015).[6] In 2014 he was selected for the Africa39 list of writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define future trends in African literature,[7][8] and was included in the anthology Africa39: New Writing from Africa South of the Sahara (ed. Ellah Allfrey).[9] He was a mentor on the 2013 Writivism programme and judged the Writivism Short Story Prize in 2014.[10] He was chair of judges for the 2016 Etisalat Flash Fiction Prize.[11]

  His first novel, Season of Crimson Blossoms, was published in 2015 by Parrésia Publishers in Nigeria and by Cassava Republic Press in the UK (2016).[12] Season of Crimson Blossoms was shortlisted in September 2016 for the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature, Africa's largest literary prize.[13] It was announced on 12 October 2016 that Ibrahim was the winner of the $100,000 prize.[14][15] Ibrahim is the recipient of the 2016 Goethe-Institut & Sylt Foundation African Writer's Residency Award which he will take up at the Sylt Foundation's headquarters in 2017.[16] Ibrahim is an editor at Daily Trust newspaper, and lives in Abuja, Nigeria.

• DW - http://www.dw.com/en/abubakar-adam-ibrahim-northern-nigerias-literary-provocateur/a-37558586

  QUOTE:
  The subject of Ibrahim's novel is the sexual emancipation of Hajiya Binta Zubairu, a Muslim woman in conservative Nigeria. It is a society in which women are denied the right to sexual desire, especially when they have fulfilled the "obligations of childbirth" and are post-menopause.

  NIGERIAN LITERATURE
  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim: northern Nigeria's 'literary provocateur'
  In his first novel "Season of Crimson Blossoms" Abubakar Adam Ibrahim speaks openly about female sexuality, broaching a taboo subject in conservative northern Nigeria. Gwendolin Hilse reports.

  Nigeria Abuja - Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Autor des Romans Season of Crimeson Blossoms (DW/G. Hilse)
  “And because they were alone in the house, because she had always wanted to, because she could not stop herself, she moaned. With his tongue, he unlocked something deep within her. She soared with tears streaming down her face.”

  You could hear a pin drop while Abubakar Adam Ibrahim read out loud from his first novel "Season of Crimson Blossoms" to an audience at the Thought Pyramid Art Center in Nigeria's capital Abuja. 50 pairs of eyes were fixed on the 37-year-old author. A couple of girls in the back row - conservatively dressed with headscarves - stared at ground giggling softly to themselves.

  The subject of Ibrahim's novel is the sexual emancipation of Hajiya Binta Zubairu, a Muslim woman in conservative Nigeria. It is a society in which women are denied the right to sexual desire, especially when they have fulfilled the "obligations of childbirth" and are post-menopause. Binta, who belongs to this category, speaks for millions who have previously remained silent. She has done what society expected of her and lived according to its rules and yet, nonetheless, succeeds in liberating herself from its constraints by having an affair with a local crook 20 years her junior.

  Subject matter like this suffices to trigger heated debate in Nigera's mainly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south. "It was not easy while writing to keep a balance between reality and respect for Hausa culture," Ibrahim told DW. The Hausa ethnic group in northern Nigeria is very sensitive about how its society, traditions and values are portrayed. But Ibrahim knew that he had to expose the sexual repression of northern Nigerian women. There are many Bintas out there whose voices are not being heard.

  Nigeria Abuja - Schriftsteller Abubakar Adam Ibrahim bekommt Preisgeld über 100.000 US Dollar für den Nigerianischen Literaturpreis (DW/G. Hilse)
  Ibrahim (second from the right), winner of the 2016 Nigerian Literature Prize with Lai Mohammed (first from the right), the Nigerian Minister for Information and Culture

  "Picture of our society"

  Ibrahim, who works as a journalist for one of Nigeria's leading daily newspapers, published a collection of short stories in 2012. "Season of Crimson Blossoms" was first published by Parresia in Nigeria in 2015. In June 2015, Cassava Republic bought the rights for international publication. The first edition quickly sold out in Nigeria.

  "As a Hausa woman, I was rather shocked when I read the book because it deals which subjects which are taboo in our culture," said 30-year-old Bilkisu Ahmad. "But it really is a realistic picture of our society."

  Overcoming trauma

  "Season of Crimson Blossoms" describes not only the affair of an unlikely couple but also a society in upheaval, locked in conflict between the modern age and the traditions of the past. The novel explores the conflicts and violence that have shaped Nigeria over the past decades and that have turned neighbors into enemies and left the victims of terrorism trying to resolve their traumas without any help from anyone.

  Nigeria Abuja - Hadiza Muhammed liest Abubakar Adam Ibrahims Roman Season of Crimeson Blossoms (DW/G. Hilse)
  'Season of Crimson Blossoms' refers openly to subjects that are taboo in northern Nigiera's mainly Muslim society

  Ibrahim is himself a member of the Hausa ethnic group. He grew up in Jos, a city in northern Nigeria which has a history of ethnic and religious unrest. Binta, the main character in the novel, loses her husband and her oldest son through ethnically-motivated violence. The novel was his personal attempt to try and come to terms with his own experiences and the never-ending crisis in his home city.

  "It is terrible to have to watch how the city that one loves is destroyed, especially when that destruction comes from within," he said. It took a long time for Ibrahim to get over the broken relationships with people who had once been neighbors or school friends. "The worst of it is that people deliberately ignore what happened and nobody talks about it," he said. That's why he believes it is important to draw attention to the plight of the traumatized who never receive proper counseling in Nigeria.

  Listen to audio 04:48
  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim talks about Season of Crimeson Blossoms - MP3-Stereo

  The voice of the north

  Ibrahim joins a long list of Nigerian authors who have won international acclaim such as Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Most of them came from the south of the country. Northern Nigeria does indeed have an extensive literature of its own, but most of it is written in Hausa and therefore accessible only to a small readership. But now that authors such as Ibrahim and Elnathan John are publishing in English, stories from northern Nigeria are acquiring a bigger, more international audience.

  Ibrahim made a conscious decision to write in English. "I think it is more necessary than ever before that the north [of Nigeria] establishes contact with the south and the rest of the world," he said. His publisher Bibi Bakare Yusuf agrees wholeheartedly. She founded her publishing house, Cassava Republic, in Abuja in 2006. It now has offices in London and is launching their list in the United States in April 2017.

  Nigeria Abuja - Buchhandlung von Cassava Republic auf dem touristischen Arts and Crafts Market (DW/G. Hilse)
  The bookshop attached to Cassava Republic publishing house at the Arts and Crafts Market in Abuja

  Bridge between cultures

  Yusuf is proud of her young writers and believes there is a great need for stories from the north. "For many Nigerians, people from other parts of the country are effectively foreigners," she said. Yusuf comes from Nigeria's financial and commercial hub, Lagos, in the south. "We know almost nothing about one another. Literature is a sort of bridge between cultures."

  In spite of its controversial subject matter, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim's first novel received instant acclaim. He is included in the Hay Festival's Africa 39, which is a list of the 39 most promising African writers under the age of 40. In October 2016, he won the Nigerian Literature Prize which is worth $100,000 (95,000 euros). He has also been awarded the "African Writers' Residency Award" by Germany's Goethe Institute and the Sylt Institute. In the summer of this year he will spend two months of the North Frisian island of Sylt working on his next novel.

• Brittle Paper - https://brittlepaper.com/2016/10/abubakar-adam-ibrahims-useless-book-toni-kan/

  Let Me Tell You About Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s “Useless” Book | by Toni Kan

  abubakar-ibrahim-nlng

  “It means a lot, not just for me but every person who has ever believed, to every writer who is struggling and working hard to tell a story, and to the publishers who take risks on our works because they have faith. I am honoured to have shared the podium with these two amazing writers and I hope this will make other writers aspire to the best of their abilities.” — Adam Ibrahim Abubakar on winning the Nigerian Prize for Literature.

  Every month, I receive at least one request to help edit a manuscript or provide a blurb for one. I also get asked to review books, movies or music CDs.

  Running a PR agency, supervising a website, sabinews.com and now, keeping a full time job at ntel, means that time is no longer my friend.

  But when you love literature and writing and books and music and movies, you have to make time because those are jealous mistresses.

  Sometime in May 2015, Adam Abubakar Ibrahim sent me an email asking me to read his manuscript and provide a blurb. The title was Season of Crimson Blossoms

  Dear TK,

  Hope you and the family are doing great and that Lagos, crazy as it is, is treating you well too.

  I hope you will find the time to blurb my novel manuscript as we discussed when we met. It is titled Season of Crimson Blossoms and is centered around the relationship between a 52-year-old widow and a 26 year-old political thug in a conservative Muslim community. (The MS is attached)…

  A pdf copy was attached.

  First thing I usually do is ask for a proof copy or a printed copy of the MS. I am a 45 year old man and reading online or off a tablet is not my default mode even though I own a kindle.

  But this time all I asked was: “How much time do I have khalifa?” because I have always admired Abubakar’s writing and found him dependable. We also shared other connections — University of Jos, Civitella Ranieri, literary journalism and a love of literature.

  authorpedia-abubakar-adam-ibrahim-author-of-seasons-of-crimson-blossoms-and-the-whispering-trees-2

  One slow Sunday afternoon in June, seven days before my birthday, I got into bed with my kindle where I had downloaded the MS and began to read. What caught my attention first was the proverb: “No matter how far up a stone is thrown, it will certainly fall back to earth” and then I met the 52 year Hajiya Binta Zubairu.

  “Hajiya Binta Zubairu was finally born at fifty-two when a dark-lipped rogue with short, spiky hair, like a field of miniscule anthills, scaled her fence and landed, boots and all, in the puddle that was her heart.

  She had woken up that morning assailed by the pungent smell of roaches and sensed that something inauspicious was about to happen. It was the same feeling she had had that day, long ago, when her father had stormed in to announce that she was going to be married off to a stranger. Or the day that stranger, Zubairu, her husband for many years, had been so brazenly consumed by communal ire when he was set upon by a mob of intoxicated zealots. Or the day her first son Yaro, who had the docile face and demure disposition of her mother, was shot dead by the police. Or even the day Hureira, her intemperate daughter, had come back home crying that she had been divorced by her good-for-nothing husband.”

  I kept reading even when the crick in my neck became painful and when my kindle battery ran down.

  I was fascinated because I grew up in the North, first Kano and then Jos, but I was discovering something new about the North in Abubakar’s book. There was lust and passion but above all a clear-eyed exposition of what it means to be human and a woman and middle aged in Northern Nigeria riven not just by religion but by religious crises.

  It was a deliciously saucy story, one that I knew would not end well but which, like a car crash on a busy highway, compels you not to look away. A sample:

  “Two nights later, when he was tossing and turning on the bed next to her, she knew he would nudge her with his knee and she would have to throw her legs open. He would lift her wrapper, spit into her crotch and mount her. His callous fingers would dig into the mounds on her chest and he would bite his lower lip to prevent any moan escaping. She would count slowly under her breath, her eyes closed, of course. And somewhere between sixty and seventy – always between sixty and seventy – he would grunt, empty himself and roll off her until he was ready to go again. Zubairu was a practical man and fancied their intimacy as an exercise in conjugal frugality. It was something to be dispensed with promptly, without silly ceremonies.

  She wanted it to be different. She had always wanted it to be different. And so when he nudged her that night, instead of rolling on to her back and throwing her legs apart, she rolled into him and reached for his groin. He instinctively moaned when she caressed his hardness and they both feared their first son, lying on a mattress across the room, would stir.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ The words, half-barked, half-whispered, struck her decidedly like a blow. He pinned her down and, without further rituals, lifted her wrapper. She turned her face to the wall and started counting. The tears slipped down the side of her shut eyes before she got to twenty.”

  And it was different many years later when she finally makes love to another man, a younger man.

  “She reached out for the wrap of suya he had bought. He had arrived at the hotel ahead of her and booked the room. But when she came, her hunger – their hunger, had been of a different sort. She had barely waited for him to close the door when she covered his lips with hers, pushing him against the panel.

  Overcoming his initial surprise, he had responded with fervour, his hands reaching down to lift her dress over her head. Their tongues intertwined, their bodies entangled, their hands feeling each other’s bodies—as if to be sure that in the period of their forced abstinence they hadn’t changed— they moved to the bed. Because she wanted to, fought for it even, he let her sit astride him and ride him, her moans reaching up to the ceiling.”

  Reading further, beyond the quotidian domestic routines and incipient passion, the aimless young men and bloody orgies, I heard echoes of Soyinka — “Some maniac hacked at the wall with a machete, the angry sound of metal on concrete and his hate-filled scream jarred Fa’iza’s nerves.”

  As well as Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his use of prolepsis, “She had woken up that morning assailed by the pungent smell of roaches and sensed that something inauspicious was about to happen” a common trope in works of magical realism.

  And so I finished the manuscript that same Sunday, all 384 pages of it and then I sent him an email:

  “Best MS, sorry, book I have read in years.”

  And then I sent him the blurb:

  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’ s Season of Crimson Blossoms opens as a slow paced story about a widow apparently going through a mid-life crisis then spirals into something dark and dangerous. This is a career and generation defining novel, one that captures the angst and dysfunction that is contemporary Nigerian history.

  Binta’s story is Nigeria’s story all at once; a smogarsboard of pain and death told with a steady voice and sure hand. Abubakar betrays now and again his sentiments, but the story rises above it all to capture the story of a generation through the canvas of one woman’s life with all the fault lines in bold relief. This is a brave and important novel which shocks and excites in equal measure with its echoes of Marquez, Soyinka and Ben Okri. — Toni Kan, poet and novelist.

  Why have I written this? First, I did not want to write a review having provided a blurb but to address the caption. Many years ago, on an online list serve I belonged to, a poet whose work I had refused to edit because I found it badly written had taken umbrage and accused me of editing and providing blurbs for ‘useless’ books. I am happy to have read and provided a blurb for Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s ‘useless; book, Season of Crimson Blossoms.

  Meanwhile, as I write this now, I wonder, was Abubakar Adam Ibrahim assailed by the pungent smell of roaches when he woke up today? I doubt it. It must have been a smell more pleasing to the nose because today something auspicious has happened. His ‘useless’ book has won Africa’s biggest literary prize.

  Congrats fellow Civitellan and Josite.

• Daily Nation - http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/weekend/A-chat-with-Sh13m-prize-winner-Adam-Ibrahim-Abubakar/1220-4172182-b6cnsd/index.html

  QUOTE:
  It is a huge prize. In monetary terms, it is one of the biggest prizes in the world.
  That someone from my part of Nigeria, from the north that has always been perceived as educationally less advanced than the rest of the country, could write a book that would be so widely accepted, that could win a prize like this, was a huge motivation.
  Most importantly, it is also a validation for the book. Before the prize, the reception had been amazing and for a lot of readers, the prize was a validation of their taste, if you like.

  A chat with Sh13m prize winner Adam Ibrahim Abubakar
  FRIDAY NOVEMBER 3 2017

  Abukakar Adam Ibrahim is the author the short
  Abukakar Adam Ibrahim is the author the short story collection The Whispering Trees, the title story earning a shortlist on the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2014. ILLUSTRATION| JOHN NYAGAH

  In Summary
  For me, Sylt was a really important residency because it came at a really crucial time.
  Since the publication of my novel (Seasons of Crimsons Blossoms), in 2015, I have been on an endless book tour. And winning the Nigeria Prize for Literature last year has meant I have had so much distraction it was hard to find time to write.
  And I have been stuck in the middle of a novel I started writing just before the publication of Season and I was itching to get back to it with little success. So the timing of the residency was perfect for me.
  And I was able to accomplish something significant there. I started this novel in a residency, at Civitella in Italy, and finished it at another residency.
  By James Murua
  Abukakar Adam Ibrahim is the author the short story collection The Whispering Trees, the title story earning a shortlist on the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2014.

  He followed through with his debut novel, Season of Crimson Blossoms, which won him the Nigeria Prize for Literature 2016, Africa’s richest literary prize.

  Abukakar Adam Ibrahim gave the Saturday Nation an exclusive interview when he spent time in Nairobi a few weeks ago.

  What are you doing in Nairobi?

  I am here for the Goethe Institut Literary Crossroads event, which features two writers from two different countries, in this case, Nigeria and Kenya, myself and Abdul Adan, to discuss about literature and writing on the continent. I am also here for the Storymoja Festival.

  You first came to prominence as a playwright when you won the BBC African Performance Prize in 2007 with the play A Bull Man’s Story, which spoke about domestic violence. Did you see this as a natural home and why didn’t you follow through on this route of writing plays?

  I have written a number of plays since then. I have been one of the writers for a popular radio series airing in Nigeria.

  But I haven’t written anything for stage since my university days. The popularity of plays has suffered significantly and the theatre culture has been the greatest victims.

  Theatre producers have had to struggle to get plays going and only a few have been hits.

  There have been a few exceptional plays though. Perhaps someday I will go back to writing plays but for now I am revelling in the freedom prose affords me.

  You then went on to start writing short stories which were also very well received, even getting a Caine Prize nomination. For some, short stories are an end it itself while others see them as building towards getting to the novel. What school of thought does your writing subscribe?

  For me, they were place holders, something I did before the novel. Publishing a short story collection wasn’t an idea that had occurred to me because I was obsessed with writing novels, have always been.

  And a lot of the short stories I read at the time weren’t ones I would go back to, they left an aftertaste in the mouth, and sometimes they weren’t good aftertaste, so I just thought of writing the sort of short stories I would like to read without thinking of publishing them in a book.

  Eventually, the opportunity presented itself for the short stories to be published and I agreed to. So for me, they weren’t a build-up towards a novel.

  I wasn’t working up my novel writing stamina with them because the novel had always been the ideal and my aspiration and the short stories were just breathers.

  You have been writer in residence in Germany with the Sylt Foundation. More African writers are being seen taking residencies around the world. How important are these sojourns away from their lives to a writer?

  For me, Sylt was a really important residency because it came at a really crucial time. Since the publication of my novel (Seasons of Crimsons Blossoms), in 2015, I have been on an endless book tour. And winning the Nigeria Prize for Literature last year has meant I have had so much distraction it was hard to find time to write.

  And I have been stuck in the middle of a novel I started writing just before the publication of Season and I was itching to get back to it with little success. So the timing of the residency was perfect for me.

  And I was able to accomplish something significant there. I started this novel in a residency, at Civitella in Italy, and finished it at another residency.

  I think residencies are really important for writers, especially for writers who have to deal with distractions like the necessity of daily living or a regular job.

  For a disciplined writer, the chance to go away and just focus on writing is really important, and I would like to see more of these residencies on the continent.

  In East Africa, many writers don’t have many positive things to say about their publishing industry. Does the same apply in Nigeria? How have you navigated the ‘publisher minefield’ locally and abroad?

  At some point it was the same in Nigeria. There was a collapse of the publishing industry in the 1980s and 1990s, meaning that a whole generation of Nigerian writers lost their voice and were never published traditionally or at least very few of them were. But things have picked up.

  More people found the courage to venture into publishing and the result has been a chorus of new literary voices bursting onto the scene.

  Regardless, it is still an industry that is struggling to find its feet and there have been challenges. Many writers have been burned by publishers, but I suppose that happens everywhere.

  I have been lucky to find publishers who are genuinely passionate about my book and I feel that the reception the book has had is a justification of their faith in the book.

  You then went onto write your debut novel, Seasons of Crimson Blossoms, which was well received by all lovers of Africa literature. What was the motivation for this book?

  The principal motivation was to tell a good story. I was really interested in how older men dating younger women, or even marrying them, is considered the norm.

  And when the woman happens to be older, a whole lot of factors come into play. I wanted to write about this and the factors that often shape the outcome of a relationship like this.

  And it became even more interesting when the young man involved in this instance happens to be a man of questionable reputation.

  Of course I didn’t want the story to be stereotypical, so it wasn’t just about sex but about something more substantial, more complex.

  There had to be a lot of emotion involved. It also happened to be an opportunity to talk about trauma and our attitude to it, to talk about Jos and what happened there. But all of these were subjective to the idea of a just telling a good story, which was my principal motivation in the first place.

  You won the Nigerian prize for literature. Does this mean anything for you (and conversely other writers) besides the $100,000 (Sh13 million) prize money that accompanies it?

  Of course it does. It is a huge prize. In monetary terms, it is one of the biggest prizes in the world.

  That, of course, comes with its own baggage, not necessarily pleasant ones. It did make life a lot more complicated because it meant that even people who did not read now recognised you on the street and all they think about is there goes the guy who got all that money. For a lot of people, it was very significant.

  That someone from my part of Nigeria, from the north that has always been perceived as educationally less advanced than the rest of the country, could write a book that would be so widely accepted, that could win a prize like this, was a huge motivation.

  And since we are largely still communal, it was a success that everyone felt they shared, as much as they felt entitled to the prize money.

  Most importantly, it is also a validation for the book. Before the prize, the reception had been amazing and for a lot of readers, the prize was a validation of their taste, if you like.

  It has brought a lot more people to the book. People who would not normally read it wanted to read it and find out why it is being talked about so much, why it won a prize like that. What it does mean to me is that the years I spent working on the book were not completely wasted.

  Who are you reading that you can recommend to fellow readers?

  I try to read literature from different parts of the world just to have a feel of what is going on and to remind myself that humans across the world do share certain universal concerns.

  I have enjoyed reading Ayobami Adebayo’s Stay With Me. I found it really engaging. I have enjoyed Colson Whitehead’s haunting slavery novel, The Underground Railroad.

  It was a gutting but necessary read and I found his writing beautiful. My recent discovery has been Angola’s Jose Eduardo Agualusa. I have read his book, Creole. And I am currently reading A General Theory of Oblivion. Yewande Omotoso’s The Woman Next Door was also a good read. I would recommend those.

• Granta - https://granta.com/all-that-was-familiar/

  ALL THAT WAS FAMILIAR
  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim
  Exactly twenty-four hours after I’d left Maiduguri, in Borno State, north-eastern Nigeria, the city where Boko Haram first sprung from, hundreds of shabbily dressed people poured onto the windswept streets demanding food.

  A friend I’d met during my visit to the ancient capital drew my attention to the news on Facebook. As events unfolded, I followed the story from my home in Abuja, five hundred miles south of the troubled region.

  The protesters were internally displaced persons (or IDPs) who, driven by hunger and desperation, had taken to the streets to protest neglect. It was easy for me to visualise how, with what little energy they had left in their bodies, they’d trudged onto the Maiduguri–Kano Road in worn flip-flops, cutting off traffic, waving their fists in the air. In the crowd I imagined the faces of Sa’adatu and Zahra, people I had been with only hours before, people who had survived the indiscriminate bullets of Boko Haram, only to be forced out of their homes and into the relative safety of Maiduguri and its dreary camps for displaced persons.

  ‘Our children are dying,’ Bashir Musty, one of the protesters said, ‘many are sick as a result of lack of food. All we are saying is we need food to feed our family.’ When I read this in newspaper reports, it was the image of Sa’adatu’s three hungry children lying on empty sacks on the floor of their shack, wheezing like dying animals, that came to my mind. The image had stuck and it refused to go away.

  *

  Since Boko Haram began its insurgency in 2011, over two million people have been displaced from their homes in north-eastern Nigeria, northern Cameroon and southern Niger Republic. Only twenty per cent of these individuals are housed in established camps, most of which are in and around Maiduguri. The others have melded into host communities where they live in uncompleted buildings or temporary shacks set up in open fields. Some of them have fled as far south as the nation’s capital, Abuja, over five-hundred miles away, and where there are about thirty camps for IDPs. Some have gone even further south.

  Sa’adatu Musa couldn’t travel south. Not that she wanted to. She is forty-five, has nine children – the oldest fifteen, the youngest just over a year old – and a husband who she hasn’t seen or heard from in ten months.

  On the bare floor of her tarpaulin shack, Sa’adatu sat with her legs stretched out before her, cradling her baby, as she shoved a nipple in his mouth. With one hand she brushed the sand out of his hair; with the other she stirred the gruel she was making on an open flame in what was effectively her living room. In one corner there was an array of plastic utensils – buckets, jerrycans and a basin for collecting and storing water – and a stack of old aluminium plates, all clean and dry in a tray on the floor. Next to these were three of Sa’adatu’s nine children. They were lying on empty grain sacks spread out on the bare floor, their ribs disturbingly visible. They were skinny and weak and hungry.

  ‘They haven’t eaten in days,’ Sa’adatu told me as I sat on a stool across the room from her. ‘I went out and begged and someone gave me fifty naira. I bought some corn flour with it and I am making this for them.’ She stirred the gruel in the old, soot-covered pot.

  S and her children waiting for food in the camp

  Sa’adatu and her children waiting for food

  Multiple reports of displaced persons dying of hunger surfaced in June and July 2016, prompting angry reactions and rebuttals from the Nigerian government and the government of Borno State, where the bulk of the displaced persons are from and where over one and a half million IDPs are currently located. Deaths from hunger may not be prevalent in the many camps around Maiduguri, but they are a reality in camps elsewhere in the state, in Bama, for instance.

  In June 2016, photos emerged on social media of government officials re-bagging food meant for the IDPs to sell in the markets. The commandeering of relief materials for IDPs is a common occurrence here. Nutritious milk that UNICEF has designated for starving children regularly turns up in shops, where it sells for about a dollar. Looking at Sa’adatu’s children, I imagined how much they could do with that milk – or any milk for that matter.

  This disturbing scene wasn’t what I had expected when I arrived at the Bakassi camp. Woolly clouds flecked the blue sky hanging over the red-and-blue aluminium roofs of a fenced-off but unfinished housing estate. The estate is so expansive one would have thought all the displaced persons in Maiduguri could fit into it. The picturesque scenery was disarming, so much so that when the reality beyond the fence hit, it was brutal.

  I had arrived in Maiduguri days before. After spending a whole day in the 7th Division Headquarters of the Nigerian Army in Maiduguri, trying to secure authorisation to visit the camps, I was handed a letter on fine quality glossy paper, asking me to return to Abuja and apply through the army headquarters in Nigeria’s capital. The whole process would take at least five days. I couldn’t understand it. I wanted to write a happy story about the camps, about IDPs finding love and dreaming of returning home. What was the military afraid of? And who on earth would waste such a beautiful piece of paper, glossy and all, just to turn down my request?

  A major in the army, smiling effusively as he swivelled in his chair, took the time to explain why they were being so cautious. They had had lots of negative reports from journalists; and they needed to protect the integrity of the IDPs. I listened to him, sipping the soft drink he had offered me from his office fridge. I understood why they had to be careful; the Nigerian Army hasn’t always had the greatest reputation for civility. Their notoriety for dishing out corporal punishment to civilians on the streets was firmly established during the succession of military regimes between 1966–1999.

  Recently, there have been reports that the soldiers and vigilantes guarding the camps have been exchanging food for sex with desperate inhabitants of the camps. Some IDPs have become pregnant as a result. I found myself wondering if, desperate as she was to feed her children, Sa’adatu would eventually succumb to something similar. There is nothing hunger will not drive people to.

  Without authorisation, I managed to make my way into the Bakassi Camp early the next morning.

  A woman walking past the Bakassi Camp

  A woman walking past the Bakassi Camp in Maiduguri

  What has become the Bakassi Camp was conceived as a luxury estate for the high and mighty. Driving in through gates manned by the military and local vigilantes, one is confronted by expansive flats stretching into the distance. They are still unpainted. Built with public funds, a government official tried to appropriate the choice real estate for private use, but after another round of elections new officials seized the property and put it to use as a camp for IDPs.

  Beyond the luxury flats, endless rows of tarpaulin shelters have been set up to accommodate more and more IDPs pouring in from different parts of Borno, from areas that have been occupied or attacked by Boko Haram. Nearly thirty thousand people live in the Bakassi camp.

  Sa’adatu is from Gwoza, eighty-five miles south-east of Maiduguri. In 2014, when Boko Haram was at the height of its powers, the town came under sporadic attack. Sa’adatu’s husband, Musa Adamu – who had two other wives and a total of nineteen children – was just recovering from surgery and contemplating moving his family to a more secure location.

  ‘We heard stories of “the boys” ambushing people on the way and killing them,’ she said, referring to Boko Haram. Boko Haram do not like being called Boko Haram, which they see as derogatory, and those who have lived within reach of their reign of terror have found other euphemisms for them. Afraid they would be waylaid if they left, she and her family stayed on in Gwoza, hoping to ride out the trouble. But after the Eid feast of July 2014, Boko Haram tightened its grip around their town and they realised they couldn’t stay any longer. The possibility of fleeing into an ambush became more enticing than waiting to be gunned down in their homes.

  ‘If the boys had stopped us on the way, it would have been Allah’s will,’ she said, stirring the steaming gruel. I wondered if the meal was being overcooked when I noticed how mildly the flame was burning, licking the bottom of the pot without commitment. One of Sa’adatu’s daughters walked in, aged about ten, her skin dripping with water. She had just had her bath in one of the toilets in camp, of which there were several. Made of roofing sheets, these are strategically located to avoid overcrowding. Hand-pumped boreholes provide water, so Sa’adatu’s water-storage utensils were left empty in the corner of the room. The girl sat opposite her mother, looking into the pot while pretending to twiddle with her toes.

  Back in 2014, Sa’adatu had packed carefully. They took utensils, bedding and a supply of food, both cooked and uncooked. She loaded this onto the heads of her children, strapped her last born, only a few weeks old then, on her back, and together with her husband set out on foot. They trekked for two days and a night, avoiding major roads and towns, until they arrived at a military facility.

  A tent shelter for Internally Displaced Persons in north-east Nigeria, where over two million people have been displaced by Boko Haram

  The soldiers don’t know who the enemy is, because Boko Haram is not a conventional army. As a result, the family was detained and questioned for days. If they were judged to be Boko Haram sympathisers, their fate would be sealed. The saving grace, Sa’adatu said, was that someone the military trusted vouched for them.

  ‘The man knew my husband and told them he was certain that we weren’t involved with Boko Haram. He told them he knew us very well and had last seen my husband a month before,’ she said.

  Perhaps if he hadn’t added the last sentence, things might have turned out differently. The soldiers wanted to look into that one-month window. The whole family was transferred to Giwa barracks in Maiduguri, which had become notorious as a detention centre for suspected members of the Boko Haram terror group. Amnesty International’s report in May 2016 suggested that between January and May 2016, 149 people, including children as young as five months, died at Giwa.

  Sa’adatu and her husband were unaware of these figures, and even if they had heard rumours about Giwa barrack’s notoriety, anywhere was better than being held in Boko Haram’s enclave.

  Sa’adatu and her children were put in a detention cell alongside other women and minors. She estimates their numbers to be around two hundred and eighty. There was no toilet, and since they were locked in between 4 p.m. and 9 a.m., they urinated and defecated in a huge plastic drum, which they took turns emptying in the morning.

  The men were held in a separate building. They were not let out. So in the hours that the cell doors were thrown open to her, Sa’adatu went round the back of the men’s detention building to catch glimpses of her husband through the window.

  ‘I would wave at him and he would wave back,’ she said, looking at the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) logo printed on the white tarpaulin wall as if she could see his face there. ‘When his shirt was dirty, he would take it off and throw it through the window. I would wash it and throw it back to him so the soldiers didn’t see.’

  After two months at Giwa, her husband sent her a message. He had heard they were going to be transferred to another facility for further interrogation. ‘He asked me and the children to fast and pray for him,’ she said. Sa’adatu was also worried. She had heard stories by now from other detainees, and from the soldiers too.

  ‘We were told that during the previous government, the men were taken and shot. But now things are better so they are only taken to be questioned. Those who are not involved in the insurgency might get out in five months. So don’t worry, they said, if your husband is innocent, he will be out in months. But we were told that if death comes, whether you are in your home or in the market, it will meet you. Some of the men may die before those five months are up.’

  The next morning, Sa’adatu and the other women watched as a vehicle escorted by armed soldiers took the men away. With her little boy balanced on her hips, she watched the convoy drive towards the gates and recede into the distance, wondering when she would see her husband again. She was sure she would see him again. He had nothing the soldiers wanted; he was innocent. She was certain of that. But ten, long months have passed since that day. Her little baby has grown into a toddler, and Sa’adatu’s husband has not returned.

  ‘We took ourselves there,’ she said, her voice trailing off. ‘By ourselves, we took ourselves there.’

  *

  Two months after her husband was shipped out of Giwa barracks, Sa’adatu and her children were crammed into a vehicle and moved to the Arabic Teachers’ College camp, where over a year later hunger would drive the IDPs into the streets. She only stayed twenty days. The truck came for her again and this time she was moved to the Bakassi Camp, where another ten thousand people from Gwoza were kept. Sa’adatu felt better back among familiar faces, comforted by people who knew for certain her husband was only a victim, just as they all were.

  But here, at Bakassi, new challenges arose. In the eight months she has been at the camp, the stores have remained empty. The last time supplies were replenished was over a year ago, months before she arrived. Relief materials are scarce, and the IDPs are not allowed to go out and beg for food or alms. Maiduguri is laden with whispers – whispers of trucks loaded with relief materials driving in through the front gates of the camps, and then driving out the rear gates, still fully loaded.

  Children wandering the Bakassi Camp in Maiduguri

  Children wandering around Bakassi Camp in Maiduguri

  Sometimes, Sa’adatu strolls by the camp kitchen to see if the hearth is being stoked in preparation for a meal. But the ashes have been cold for weeks now and she often returns with tears stinging in her eyes, unsure what to tell the children. And with the exits from the camps tightly controlled by the soldiers and vigilantes, her chances of going out to beg for food on the streets are curtailed, and the possibility of getting news of her husband increasingly remote.

  Rumours of a possible relocation to Gwoza, which might happen by the end of the year, do not excite her as they do the other IDPs, who think that back home they might be able to find food more regularly. The way Sa’adatu sighed at the rumours, I suspected a return home might have appealed if her husband was with her.

  ‘I don’t know where my husband is, whether he is dead or alive,’ she said, her head cocked to one side in a posture of resignation. The room is silent now, completely, save for the wheezing breath of her hungry children sleeping on the empty sack on the floor.

  *

  The drive across Maiduguri was laced with silence, that kind of brooding, contemplative silence in which one takes stock of things such as the essence of life and hunger and death. Classic country music rolled out of the car speakers, filling the void. Every time the car slowed down in traffic, hordes of children, and sometimes adults too, clawed at the windows, begging for charity.

  ‘Please help an orphan,’ they each chanted, shuffling against each other, trying to position themselves better for whatever might come out of the car. There are many of them now in Maiduguri. So many it bothers you. They are the orphans of the Boko Haram carnage, and those who pose as such victims to make some money. There will always be people who take advantage.

  Beyond the forest of outstretched arms and clawing fingers, Maiduguri seemed normal, almost – a city learning to breathe again after the ravages of Boko Haram. Traders and artisans have goods on display in shops and walkways. Fancy street lamps line the roads, some imported from France to give the city the exotic ambience of Paris. I am surprised by how boisterous the city seems, bulging with life and hordes of displaced people. And the dreams that people have, even in the most troubling times.

  It was here that what has become known today as Boko Haram was born, here in this city of the proud Kanuri tribe and their ancient history, the seat of the Kanem Empire. It was here that one Muhammed Yusuf started preaching a radical form of Islam in 2002, exponentially growing his militant fan base with frustrated youths. And when in 2009 the group confronted the authorities, it was here, in Maiduguri, that they were brutally crushed. Yusuf was killed along with hundreds of his followers. Other members of his sect fled and went underground, only to resurface in 2011 as the deadly terror group that would, at the peak of its powers (around January 2015), hold some twenty thousand square miles of territory – an area roughly the size of Croatia.

  Our car is stopped now at a checkpoint. Young vigilantes armed with bamboo clubs, machetes and Dane guns peer into the car, looking at me, my photographer and the driver. Their bleary eyes and dope-stained lips tell of drug use. They are called the Civilian Joint Task Force. Tired of Boko Haram attacks, youths of the city took up arms to hunt down the terrorists that had risen from among them. And it is in large part thanks to them that Maiduguri is relatively free of the insurgents. The model has been replicated in other towns in the north-east, helping the military to identify and tackle members of the sect. The story of this insurgency cannot be told without their contribution, but when Boko Haram is fully subjugated, the government will have to find some use for these youths, or they too will become a problem.

  For now, they are everywhere, patrolling the streets and guarding buildings. They were there at the gate of the Dalori IDP camp on the outskirts of the city, where they and the soldiers keep watch.

  Dalori is one of the biggest camps in the country. Walking through the gate, one is confronted by hordes of people and endless rows of tarpaulin shelters that stretch as far as the eyes can see.

  Dalori Camp in Nigeria

  A view of the Dalori camp in Nigeria

  Zahra Mohammed, a twenty-five-year-old Cameroonian, lives here. Her shack is just a single room, about six feet by ten feet. Her personal effects – plates, mats and a flimsy mattress – are scattered around the little space. You can hear voices through the tarpaulin walls separating her from her neighbours.

  In the year Zahra lived here, her life consisted of waking up, washing her dishes, cleaning her room and, at about noon, joining the queues for the first meal of the day.

  ‘Sometimes we don’t get food, so we try to cook whatever we have scavenged or some of the relief materials we have,’ she says. She is soft-spoken, but there is sharpness in her eyes, eyes that belie the difficult times she has gone through, both here and in the forest she was rescued from.

  Herwa Community Development Initiative, the NGO that offers her counselling and trains her and others in skill acquisition, euphemistically calls her a survivor. Others who are less tactful would call her a ‘Boko Haram Wife’.

  *

  In July 2014, Zahra was recently divorced, nursing her seven-month old baby Jamila and tending to her sick mother at a hospital in Kolofata, northern Cameroon, when she heard gunshots and explosions.

  Armed men burst in, pointed their guns at her, then dragged Zahra and her child away from her mother’s bedside. She was blindfolded and thrown into a truck along with other women. One of them was the wife of the Cameroonian Deputy Prime Minister Amadou Ali, and it was primarily because of her that the Boko Haram attack on Kolofata made the local and international news. Not one of these reports mentioned Zahra Mohammed by name. She was one of the ‘other women’.

  Zahra’s heart beat wildly as they drove, and she heard the sounds of the life she used to know recede into the distance. They bumped their way through rough bush paths, on and on until all that was familiar was only a memory, save her daughter clinging to her.

  They were driven into the forest of Buni Yadi, where the younger women were separated from the older ones. That was the last time Zahra would see the wife of the Deputy Prime Minister, even though they were held together for three months. Every day, armed men would escort the younger women to attend classes run by Boko Haram scholars. And when new victims were captured in raids, the militants asked Zahra and the other captives to cook for them. There was a routine to that life in Buni Yadi, but that routine was soon disrupted.

  One day, bombs fell out of the heavens and exploded around the militants’ camp. Screaming, the terrified women crouched on the floors, fearing a bomb would explode over their heads and that would be the end of it. But they survived.

  The air raid forced Boko Haram to move camp, relocating with their hostages to another forest. At the new camp, Zahra worried about the well-being of her daughter, her son, who had been with his father when she was taken, and the fate of her ill mother left in the hospital. Her captors were contemplating other matters.

  ‘They said they wanted to marry me,’ Zahra said. ‘I told them I wanted to return to my parents, and they said my parents were infidels and I would never see them again.’ It was a curious proposal. If Zahra had said yes, the interested militant would have reported to the amir, or the head of the cell, that he had found a willing wife. For Boko Haram, hierarchy is important. A witness – a survivor – had told me she had seen about twenty militants executed by their commander for taking ‘wives’ without his consent. They were branded fornicators and shot. Against the wishes of the executioner, the women were spared because they were forced into the ‘marriage’. The enraged executioner had to be physically restrained from shooting the women.

  Zahra did not know this, of course, but she still rejected the proposal. Spurned, the militants decided to force her hand.

  ‘They put me in a hole in the ground and covered it with some crude construct. They kept me there for fifteen days. And when they brought me out, I still refused,’ she said. She was fiddling with her fingers now.

  She sat staring out of the door to where the other women were sitting in the shade, braiding their hair and speaking in Kanuri. I imagined how she must have felt in those seven months of her captivity, losing all contact with home and everyone she had loved. I wondered if she heard when the government of Cameroon negotiated with Boko Haram for the release of the wife of the Deputy Prime Minister. If she had wished she was with those freed alongside the wife of the politician after the ransom was paid. I wondered how it felt to be one of the forgotten ones, and to remain one of the forgotten ones years later.

  With no news of home, all she had was her daughter, Jamila. She held her for comfort at night and the innocent child, then fourteen months old, was the only source of joy she had.

  But then the fighter jets came again. Another day, another raid. With bombs dropping, chaos broke out in the camp. The women saw an opening and fled into the forest, but were pursued by their unrelenting captors.

  With little Jamila strapped to her back, Zahra ran into uncharted terrain. The wrapper she used to bind her daughter to her back came undone and Jamila tumbled off, falling to the ground and snapping her neck.

  I could visualise Zahra falling to her knees, shaking her baby, asking her to wake up, calling her name and wailing to the heavens. But Jamila was dead. And when the Boko Haram militants caught up with the distraught woman, they dragged her away.

  ‘Your crying will not bring her back,’ they told her.

  There was something almost mechanical about the way Zahra narrated her story, as if wanting to detach herself from it. Perhaps it was because she had already told it several times before, to her fellow refugees and displaced persons, to news hounds, NGOs and the international aid groups who had promised to help her find her family, all without success.

  The only moment emotion crept into her voice was when she said, ‘I still think about my daughter.’ She looked down at her fingers, now dovetailed into each other. ‘I think about her all the time.’

  When another military raid on their new camp at Kera Laji presented another opportunity to escape, Zahra took it. Survival was paramount in her mind. She ran. For her dead daughter. For her living son. For her sick mother, who may or may not be dead. For the love of life, she ran and did not stop, until she, along with five other women, reached Bama, which had just been retaken by the Nigerian Army.

  There they were housed in the local prison for five days, until Boko Haram made a spirited attempt to retake the city. The attack was repelled and the army decided it was best to move the women to the safety of Maiduguri, to the massive camp of Dalori, where Zahra has been ever since.

  *

  It was Tuesday. In the bright sun of Maiduguri, close to the gate of the Dalori camp, there was a football match going on, two teams of IDPs slugging it out against each other. But for Zahra, it was just another day.

  She had woken up to the humdrum life of the camp. And by noon, it was clear there wouldn’t be any food that day. The cooks were idling in the kitchen, cleaning utensils and finding ways of appearing busy, but anyone could tell nothing was happening there. Zahra would have to cook some of her rice or noodles. She had some spice she could sprinkle on them to give them a little taste. Conditions at Dalori are far better than at the Bakassi camp; at least here, food is more regular and the prospect of starving does not loom so large.

  When she was told that some officials from Herwa, the NGO that has been counselling her, had come and were waiting for her at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) tent, she probably didn’t think much of it. She shelved her plans to cook for the moment. Who knew, perhaps the kitchen would come alive by the time she was done.

  The UNFPA tent was located near the makeshift school in the camp. It stood out from the field of white tarpaulins because it was yellow and the sunlight streaming through the tarp gave the inside of the tent an ethereal amber glow.

  A counselling session for IDPs

  A counselling session for Internally Displaced Persons

  There was only one Herwa official on the ground, but he had come with representatives of the Federation of Muslim Women’s Association of Nigeria (FOMWAN).

  The women huddled on the mats in the middle of the tent, talking to the officials. Soon, there was a buzz of excitement. Other women who had been in separate corners joined the group in the centre. Zahra sat, her hands on her lap, looking down at the mat. She seemed dazed.

  One of the FOMWAN officials was also Cameroonian, and she happened to know Zahra’s parents. She told Zahra that her mother had recovered from her illness; her family had relocated to Marwa, but they were alive and well.

  It was the first news from home Zahra had received in two years. Looking at her sitting there in the midst of the women, holding back the tears in her eyes, I could see how much this bit of news meant to her. She seemed completely floored by this happy coincidence.

  ‘They think I am dead,’ Zahra told me later. ‘They told them I had been killed in one of the air raids in the forest. They’ve even said prayers for my soul.’

  This information was hard for her to process and she didn’t seem to know how to handle the news. But beneath the confusion, there was relief. And the renewed stirring of hope, the thawing of dreams long put on ice. There would be bureaucracy and paperwork to get her out of the camp if someone came for her, but the priority now was to reach out to her parents and let them know she was alive and well.

  ‘I just want to see my family and my son again,’ she said. The trembling in her voice told of anxiety, of an eagerness to remove the cloak of death from over her head, to reveal herself to the world she knew and that knew her.

  For Zahra, there is now a glimmer of light at the end of her long and winding tunnel. For Sa’adatu Musa and her children at Bakassi, the wait continues.

  This essay was made possible by Refugees Worldwide, a project by the International Literature Festival of Berlin. Abubakar Adam Ibrahim is a Nigerian writer, whose debut novel Season of Crimson Blossoms is the winner of the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature, and is published by Cassava Republic Press.

  Photographs © Abubakar Adam Ibrahim and Fati Abubakar

• African Words - https://africainwords.com/2015/06/18/qa-with-author-and-africa-writes-guest-abubakar-adam-ibrahim/

  QUOTE:
  You know, sometimes people think that writers have this grand philosophy to put across to the world. Most times, it’s actually not like that. For me it was basically about telling a good story. That was how it started. And then as I was telling this story a lot of these complexities came up. What if this situation of an older woman dating a younger guy happens in a Muslim community with its conservative views about life? How would the society react to this thing? What would be the issues involved, considering her age and the time period from which she’s coming? So you have all these issues about how she relates with her children, for instance.

  HOME › AFRICA WRITES › Q&A WITH AUTHOR AND AFRICA WRITES GUEST ABUBAKAR ADAM IBRAHIM

  Q&A with author and Africa Writes guest Abubakar Adam Ibrahim
  BY EMMA SHERCLIFF on 18 JUNE , 2015 • ( 9 )

  africa_writes_logo_300w_blkIn advance of Africa Writes 2015, festival guest Abubakar Adam Ibrahim talks to AiW author Emma Shercliff about love, romance and the gendered nature of reading and writing in Northern Nigeria.

  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim will appear in two events during the festival: African Books to Inspire and Romance in the Digital Age. He will also feature in a discussion about the Valentine’s Day Anthology (Ankara Press) as part of the Africa in Translation event on Friday 3rd July.

  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim is the author of the short story collection The Whispering Trees (2012, Parrésia Publishers). His debut novel Season of Crimson Blossoms will be published by Parrésia Publishers in Nigeria in 2015 and by Cassava Republic Press (UK) in 2016.

  “The North of Nigeria is severely under-represented in the body of Nigerian literature. You know, it’s a huge population and for this part not to have its story told, not to be represented in the canon of Nigerian literature, is atrocious. So I set out deliberately to address this issue. To write the kind of stories I want. And have the kind of characters I want to have in those stories, characters that have names like mine and speak like me and have similar beliefs and ideas like me, who would react to things the way I probably would.”

  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim photoES: Who are the writers of Nigerian romance; do you know what the situation is today?

  AAI: Mostly it’s been women who have been writing romance and I think that the men who do write sometimes do that under a pen name, because they don’t want to be identified as romance writers, as these emotional people, who are very sensitive to love and all that.

  ES: Are you making a distinction there between romance and soyayya stories? [Littattafan soyayya (‘literature of love’) are romance stories written in Hausa, also known as Kano market literature. These cheaply produced pamphlets are widely circulated in the North of Nigeria, sometimes selling tens of thousands of copies.]

  AAI: Oh, the soyayya stories, they are romance stories but they have more morals, you know…

  ES: They have more morals?

  AAI: Yeah, there’s more compliance to the social norms, you know. The woman is not expected to do anything that the woman is not expected to do in society, so she’s expected not to have sex before marriage, or outside marriage, no public display of affection and even when she’s defying her parents she has to do it in a very reasonable fashion. But the idea of a kiss in a soyayya novel, yeah, sometimes they sneak in a peck but…

  ES: But it would be inside the house…

  AAI: Definitely, definitely. I mean, you wouldn’t want to run the risk of having your protagonist being called a prostitute; that would be damaging for a work and whatever it is you set out to do.

  ES: So there’s a clear distinction between what we’re talking about when we talk about ‘romance’ and what we’re talking about when we talk about the soyayya literature.

  AAI: There are two different types of romance for two different types of people. I mean, the soyayya novels are written for predominantly the Hausa Fulani community and, you know, because of the effect that Islam has had on the community and the way people perceive Islam, it’s heavily reflected in the work they produce.

  ES: Would you ever consider that you write romance?

  AAI: No.

  ES: And why not?

  AAI: Because I never set out to write romance. I don’t even know if I write love stories. Maybe I write stories about love.

  ES: And that’s different?

  AAI: Yeah, I think essentially it’s different from love stories.

  VDA COVER FINAL (1)ES: So when you were writing your story ‘Painted Love’ [for the Valentine’s Day Anthology], were you approaching that differently, because you’d been asked to write a romance story?

  AAI: Yeah, obviously. I couldn’t kill as many people as I wanted. [Laughs]. You know, I set out to write a story with a happy ending, I was conscious of the type of audience I was writing for at that time. So it’s a deliberate effort to tone down some of the things and some of the complexities that you usually bring into your other stories. And I was focused on love, romance, happy ending, people not dying [laughs].

  ES: What you’re saying is very interesting there about the complexities, because romance has this reputation as being perhaps a formulaic, perhaps more simple…

  AAI: Yeah, it is very formulaic. I mean, it’s usually guy meets babe, they dislike each other, then they start liking each other, then they fall in love, then they realise, wow, there’s a problem, it can’t work, then they part and then they realise, wow, we can’t live without each other so they compromise and end up together. Happy.

  ES: And this is of course the reason for the commercial success. Because, lots of readers, that’s what they like. They like the fact that they know it’s going to be a happy ending.

  AAI: Yeah, well for people who want something a bit more challenging, it became monotonous and boring and we had to dump it and move on to other things which are more challenging intellectually and more stimulating as well.

  ES: I’m interested there you said when you were writing ‘Painted Love’ you were conscious of the audience. So, who did you have in your mind when you were writing ‘Painted Love’?

  AAI: People who love romance stories.

  ES: You did, you were really thinking that?

  AAI: Yeah, in the background of my thoughts. I mean, you know, people who love romance stories may not be very fond of tragedies; that is why when they talk about the greatest romance story they never mention Romeo and Juliet. [Laughs]. But it is inherently a romance story, when you think about it.

  ES: So, when you’re writing, do you usually have a reader in mind?

  AAI: It depends on how the inspiration for the story comes, what I want to achieve with the story. Sometimes I have ideas for stories and I just write without thinking about the audience. Sometimes, because of the complexities involved in the story and the narration, especially when it explores issues that have to do with culture, you have to be conscious of what you are doing. Do you want to provoke people or provoke thoughts or provoke even a revolt or something against the norm or the culture? So you have to sort out your priorities and figure out exactly what you want to achieve with your story.

  img_3131ES: You’ve got a new novel coming out, Season of Crimson Blossoms. So when you were writing that, were you trying to do something different? Were you trying to provoke? Did you have an audience in mind as you were writing it?

  AAI: You know, sometimes people think that writers have this grand philosophy to put across to the world. Most times, it’s actually not like that. For me it was basically about telling a good story. That was how it started. And then as I was telling this story a lot of these complexities came up. What if this situation of an older woman dating a younger guy happens in a Muslim community with its conservative views about life? How would the society react to this thing? What would be the issues involved, considering her age and the time period from which she’s coming? So you have all these issues about how she relates with her children, for instance. All those things form a background to the story that become necessary to interrogate and explore in a way that will provoke thoughts and debates because a lot of times in relation to northern Nigeria these things have not been addressed.

  Let me give you an instance. My step-mom had a similar relationship with her mom [to that of Binta, the main character in the novel] who, because of culture and tradition, is not supposed to acknowledge her daughter. So she treated her like a stranger, she never mentioned her name, she never talked to her directly and that, that was the norm. And in some societies, it’s still the practice. And it really affected her because sometimes there were things she wanted to talk to her mother about but she never had the opportunity of doing that. And when her first husband died, and she travelled back to the village, there was this yearning to be comforted by her mother but her mother was supposed to stay aloof. And she could see her mother was hurting because she wanted to comfort her, but she wasn’t allowed to do that. So all these things sort of resonated when I was writing this thing. And I thought, you know, it’s doing a lot of damage to people and to the way they relate with their children and nobody’s even acknowledging that.

  And, with my step-mom, she made a conscious effort that, look, I’m not going to allow my children to go through what I’m going through. So the moment she gave birth to her first son, she called him by his name, publicly, and said, I’m calling my son by his name and I don’t give a damn what you people think. And she was very defiant. And I love her for that, she’s a very defiant woman, you know. And I think that worked out well for her. Now she relates with her children very well and they talk a lot.

  ES: And the way that experience plays out in the story is a very powerful part of the book. Going back to the romance and the reading: the female characters in the book spend a lot of time reading.

  AAI: Do they?

  ES: They do. So we have Binta reading – she’s reading Hemingway, she’s reading The Major Sins, she’s reading Priscilla Cogan’s Compass of the Heart, and we have Leila talking about Life of Pi, the girls are reading soyayya literature – that’s quite a sub-theme in the book, this whole circulation of soyayya literature. Were you conscious of that?

  AAI: I was conscious of the girls reading soyayya novels, I mean, it’s what teenagers would do, of their age. With Binta, for a woman who is kind of confined to the home, she doesn’t go out, she doesn’t do anything and who is literate, I mean it’s natural that she would have an interest in reading. Because of the purdah system that goes on here, where women stay at home basically, they have to find ways to utilise their time and, prior to the proliferation of movies, reading was the main thing. So you have a lot of Hausa literature to read, and for those who could read in English, they could read a lot of stuff in English also. So, the part about Fa’iza and the Short Ones reading a lot of novellas was definitely deliberate, it was definitely planned. With Binta reading Hemingway I wanted to make a connection to a struggle between age and desire and all those things.

  ES: And Binta is very disapproving, of the soyayya literature that the young girls are reading.

  AAI: A lot of parents are [laughs]. I think a lot of adults think it’s something that is just pumping false notions into the heads of girls and teenagers who read them.

  ES: Even though it’s not that salacious?

  AAI: No, it’s not. But, the idea is that you could be doing something better with your time instead of reading these stories that may or may not happen. You know, unfortunately, many of our parents didn’t have the opportunity to experience life the way we did so for them there was nothing like dating or courtship, it was just ‘You are old enough, we are going to marry you off to that person.’ So they didn’t have the opportunity of experiencing love and relationships and all those things that my generation and the subsequent generations are enjoying.

  ES: But the male characters in your book don’t read – and in fact at one point Reza says actively ‘I’ve little patience for reading novels.’ Was that conscious?

  AAI: Yeah, it’s because of the kind of character he is.

  ES: So you were trying to say something about his character. Were you trying to say anything broader than that? That, really, none of the male characters in the book, even the mallam who courts Binta and his friend who sits under the umbrella all day, they don’t read, they listen to the radio.

  AAI: Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of listening to the radios here, you know. It would surprise you the amount of enlightenment that’s going on in the North. People think that people are very ignorant in the North and it’s wrong. I mean, the people in the North are the most up to date among the Nigerian citizenry because they listen to the news all the time. They are very current, you know. And for people in the generation of Binta’s courter, it’s the norm to be carrying a radio around.

  ES: And it wouldn’t be the norm for him to read?

  AAI: No. Not really. Yeah, he may read a weekly Hausa newspaper but to read a book…maybe a religious text. But, with Reza, it’s conscious he doesn’t read. It’s the kind of life he lives.

  ES: So, you’re also going to be on a panel at Africa Writes entitled ‘African Books to Inspire’, where you’re going to be talking about your favourite titles of African literature. I don’t want to go into that because I don’t want to spoil what you’re going to say at the panel. But I wondered within the body of Hausa literature, who are your other influences?

  AAI: Hausa? Um, obviously Abubakar Imam. That’s obvious of course. I mean, he wrote Magana Jari Ce and it’s an amazing collection of stories, you know. Really amazing stuff. I was reading it and I’m thinking, how could someone think of all these stories?

  ES: Is this the ‘Arabian Nights’ one?

  AAI: Yeah, recreating the Arabian Nights in Hausa. But the stories were all very local, I mean they had this very local flavour.

  ES: Where are they set?

  AAI: There are mentions of cities like Kano and other significant Hausa places, but a lot of them are fictional. The premise of the story was that there was a plot to overthrow the king and the kingdom, a fictitious kingdom of course, and this very intelligent parrot now intervened and started telling stories to distract from the conspiracy that was going on. So it’s fictional but it’s obviously Hausaland. So every single person could relate to what is happening. It was exploring the culture, the language and everything that people were used to.

  ES: I want to finish by asking you about the Valentine’s Day Anthology. One of the distinctive things about the Anthology was that the stories were translated into other languages. And you ended up translating your own story into Hausa. Can you tell me a little bit about that experience for you? What was it like to translate your own story?

  AAI: To be honest, at first it felt incestuous. I was like, you know, this is not supposed to happen. But it did. [Laughs a lot]. But in the end it was satisfying. I felt that the story came out the way I wanted it to come out in Hausa, which wouldn’t have been the case if someone else had translated it.

  ES: We have talked before about the difference between translating and recreating. What was the process for you? Were you going through it line-by-line and translating or did you take a paragraph and make that into Hausa?

  AAI: I tried to be as faithful to the original story as possible, so I basically went line by line, and where that would get in the way of the comprehension of the Hausa reader, you know, it became necessary for me to take the whole paragraph and just work on it. But I was very conscious of the structure of the story in English, and then I tried to be as faithful as possible to that.

  ES: And am I right in thinking this is the first time you’ve had something published in Hausa?

  AAI: Yes, it is, yes.

  ES: And how did that feel? Was it significant for you?

  AAI: Um, not really.

  ES: Really? Why not?

  AAI: I don’t know, it’s just, I never thought about it, really. It’s just one more published story, I think. [Laughs]

  ES: And have you thought more about writing in Hausa yourself?

  AAI: No. No I haven’t.

  ES: And why not?

  AAI: I think that one, there’s a lot of people writing in Hausa anyway, for different reasons. And, two, I think, for me, it would be sort of an inbreeding.

  ES: In what way?

  AAI: In the sense of just re-circling stuff for the Hausa people. The North of Nigeria is severely under-represented in the body of Nigerian literature. When people talk of Nigerian literature, nobody thinks of the North of Nigeria, and when you consider the size of the land and the population, it’s a huge population, significant population, and then for this part not to have its story told, not to be represented in the canon of Nigerian literature, is atrocious. So I set out deliberately to address this issue. To write the kind of stories I want. And have the kind of characters I want to have in those stories, characters that have names like mine and speak like me and have similar beliefs and ideas like me, who would react to things the way I probably would, depending on the situation. So, it’s very, very important for me to reach out to not the Hausa audience now but to create an awareness and put the North of Nigeria in the global reckoning of Nigerian literature.

  _1page-divider

  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim is a Nigerian writer and journalist. His debut short story collection The Whispering Trees was long-listed for the Etisalat Prize for Literature in 2014, with the title story shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing. Abubakar has won the BBC African Performance Prize and the Amatu Braide Prize for Prose. He is a Gabriel Garcia Marquez Fellow (2013), a Civitella Ranieri Fellow (2015) and was included in the Africa39 anthology of the most promising sub-Saharan African writers under the age of 40. His first novel, Season of Crimson Blossoms, will be published in 2015 by Parrésia Publishers. Abubakar is the Arts Editor of the Daily Trust newspaper and lives in Abuja, Nigeria. He tweets @Moonchild509.

  Africa Writes is the UK’s largest festival and celebration of African literature and is organised by the Royal African Society. The festival will run from Friday 3rd July – Sunday 5th July at the British Library. Africa Writes 2015 will bring together over 70 authors, publishers and critics including Ellah Allfrey, A. Igoni Barrett, Petina Gappah, Jackie Kay and E. C. Osondu.

  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim will appear as part of:

  African Books To Inspire
  Friday 3 July, 18.30 – 20.30
  £10 /£8/ £5 BOOK NOW
  Journalist Hannah Pool presents an evening of books and inspiration as she invites a selection of Africa39 writers to share their favourite African literature titles – from classics to new work. With Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Ndinda Kioko, Chibundu Onuzo and Nii Ayikwei Parkes. In collaboration with Hay Festival.

  Romance in the Digital Age
  Saturday 4 July, 12.15 – 13.15
  FREE
  How does one define a romance novel? What is ‘African romance’? Our panel discusses the changing nature of romance publishing, examining how current modes of digital distribution are opening up new possibilities for authors and publishers across Africa. With publishers Bibi Bakare-Yusuf of Cassava Republic Press and Gersy Ifeanyi Ejimofo of Digitalback Books, and Africa39 writers, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim and Ndinda Kioko. Chaired by Emma Shercliff.

  Africa in Translation: What’s Love Got to Do with It?
  Friday 3 July, 10.00 – 13.00
  FREE
  Three-panel symposium curated by Wangui wa Goro & Mbuguah Bekisizwe Goro of SIDENSI with support from Afrikult. (Marcelle Akita, Henry Brefo & Zaahida Mariam Nalumoso) aims to dispel myths about Africans and romance, and explore the impact of translation and its cross-cultural constructs of love on contemporary African literature. With Nwando Achebe, Phoebe Boswell, Louisa Uchum Egbunike, Chege Githiora, Henriette Gunkel, Jessica Horn, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Billy Kahora, Kara Keeling, Chioma Yvonne Mbanefo, Mpalive Msiska, Peggy Piesche, Emma Shercliff & Tomi Adeaga.

• SYLT Foundation - https://www.syltfoundation.com/Latest-news/Nigerian-writer-Abubakar-Adam-Ibrahim-spends-the-months-of-June-and-July-2017-on-the-island-of-Sylt/

  04.06.2017
  Nigerian writer Abubakar Adam Ibrahim spends the months of June and July 2017 on the island of Sylt

  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim
  © Jill Jennings

  Nigerian writer Abubakar Adam Ibrahim is spending the months of June and July 2017 on the island of Sylt. He is the 2016 winner of the Goethe-Institut & Sylt Foundation African Writer´s Residency Award (AWRA).

  Award winning writer and journalist Abubakar Adam Ibrahim is the author of the acclaimed short story collection, The Whispering Trees, (Parresia Publishers, Lagos, 2012) currently being used as study text in several Nigerian universities. He is listed by the Hay Festival in the Africa39 list of the most promising African writers under 40 who will shape the future of writing on the continent. In addition to winning the BBC African Performance Prize, he has been shortlisted for the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing and long listed for the Etisalat Prize for Prose. He is a 2015 Civitella Ranieri Fellow, a 2013 Gabriel Garcia Marquez Fellow, 2013 and 2014 Caine Prize Fellow and a Fellow of the British Council Radiophonics programme (among others). His radio play has been broadcast by the BBC World Service and his fictions have been published in various reputable media. He currently works as the Arts Editor for the Abuja-based Daily Trust newspaper. He has been a judge for the Writivism Short story competition (2014) The Short Story Day Africa competition (2015) and the Eitisalat Flash Fiction Prize (2015) and has spoken at various international literature festivals.

  With his debut novel Season of Crimson Blossoms Abubakar Adam Ibrahim won the $100,000 NLNG Nigeria Prize For Literature 2016.

  The Goethe-Institut & Sylt Foundation African Writer´s Residency Award (AWRA) offers a two month international working stay at the Foundation to writers of contemporary African literature, who are related to or engaging with contemporary themes and concerns of Africa and the African Diaspora.

  in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut
  www.goethe.de

QUOTE:
excellent first novel
Each feels longing and loss and must contend with the forces of propriety and duty to family

Print Marked Items
Season of Crimson Blossoms
Publishers Weekly.
264.14 (Apr. 3, 2017): p49+.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text: 
* Season of Crimson Blossoms
Abubakar Adam Ibrahim. Cassava Republic (Consortium, dist.), $15.95 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-
911115-00-7
Ibrahim's excellent first novel tells of the unlikely romance between a Muslim widow and a dope-dealing
street tough amidst the troubles that each faces. When 55-year-old Binta Zubairu wakes to the smell of
cockroaches, she knows that something terrible will happen to her; as the odor has always heralded disaster
in the past. Her niece Fa'iza and granddaughter Ummi, who both live with her, are away at school when her
home is robbed by a knife-wielding young man. Mysteriously, most of the stolen goods are returned a few
days later and I Binta's assailant appears to apologize. When Hassan Babale, known as Reza, returns a third
time, the two are overcome by their inexplicable desire and thus begins an illicit romance. Binta must also
contend with the arrival of her daughter, Hureira, who has left her husband, and the increasingly erratic
behavior of Fa'iza. Reza's jobs for his senator boss escalate in danger. Throughout this tale set in the author's
native Nigeria, current and past violence taints the lives of these characters seeking solace where they can
find it. Each feels longing and loss and must contend with the forces of propriety and duty to family. (May)
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Season of Crimson Blossoms." Publishers Weekly, 3 Apr. 2017, p. 49+. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A489813680/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=9f8e770e.
Accessed 8 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A489813680

QUOTE:
Set in the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria, this story of relationships, and the lack of them, unfurls
gently, revealing layers of human emotion and desires.
Season of Crimson Blossoms
New African.
.561 (May 2016): p67.
COPYRIGHT 2016 IC Publications Ltd.
http://www.africasia.com/icpubs
Full Text: 
Season of Crimson Blossoms
By Abubakar Adam Ibrahim
9.99 [pounds sterling] CASSAVA REPUBLIC PRESS
ISBN: 978-1-911115-007
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
This is Abubakar Adam Ibrahim's first novel. It tells the story of a salacious affair between 55-year-old
widow Binta Zubairu and a 26-year-old weed dealer and political thug with the very unusual name of
Hassan "Reza". The book is bound to cause more than a ripple.
Brought together by some unusual circumstances, both see a need only each other can satisfy. Binta, who
before the encounter, is reconciling herself with God, has the need to unshackle herself from the sexual
repression that characterised her marriage, and a deprivation that typified her widowhood. But beyond that,
there is her desire to redeem herself for the loss of her first son, whose tragic death haunts her still.
As word of the young man's unwholesome liaison with the widow Binta spreads and draws condemnation
and social ostracisation for Binta, things come to a head when her rich son confronts the thug, with
disastrous consequences.
Set in the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria, this story of relationships, and the lack of them, unfurls
gently, revealing layers of human emotion and desires.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Season of Crimson Blossoms." New African, May 2016, p. 67. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A453917291/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=da2138b7.
Accessed 8 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A453917291

"Season of Crimson Blossoms." Publishers Weekly, 3 Apr. 2017, p. 49+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A489813680/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 8 Jan. 2018. "Season of Crimson Blossoms." New African, May 2016, p. 67. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A453917291/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 8 Jan. 2018.

• New York Journal of Books
  https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/season-crimson
  Word count: 806

  QUOTE:
  Season is written in a gorgeous tapestry of language, tying together large-scale historical events with the smaller more mundane activities of daily life. The novel sprawls like a work by Dickens, Zola, or John Lanchester.
  Numerous passages like these resound throughout the novel, melding a folktale lyricism to an ornate language. Abubakar Adam Ibrahim represents a talented new voice in contemporary Nigerian literature. He has created a crowded milieu, brimming with characters, set amid the political violence of Muslim Nigeria.

  Season of Crimson Blossoms
  Image of Season of Crimson Blossoms
  Author(s):
  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim
  Release Date:
  May 1, 2017
  Publisher/Imprint:
  Cassava Republic Press
  Pages:
  320
  Buy on Amazon

  Reviewed by:
  Karl Wolff
  “a talented new voice in contemporary Nigerian literature.”

  Late one night Hajiya Binta Zubairu is awoken from her slumber to discover a burglar in her house. The young burglar, Hassan “Reza” Babale, struggles against Binta, eventually leaving with her DVD player, decoder, and other items. Beginning with this minor incident of juvenile criminality, Season of Crimson Blossoms by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim moves forward at an unhurried pace. Set in a small village in rural Nigeria, Season becomes an unlikely story of romance between Binta and Reza.

  Binta is a 50-something widow living alone until her grown daughter disrupts her solitude. Her daughter, Hadiza, decided to leave her husband in the latest spat. Reza is the leader of gang occupying an abandoned building. Reza and the gang dubbed the building San Siro after their favorite Italian soccer team. Set against a background of political violence and domestic squabbles, Binta and Reza carry on a taboo affair.

  Binta is a respected member of the community, regularly attending classes at the madrasa, and a devout Muslim. On the surface the May-December romance would be nothing more than something found on Amazon Kindle between a cougar and a stud. But Ibrahim elevates this odd romance into something greater and far more complicated.

  Binta finds herself attracted to Reza since he resembles her dead son. Mirroring this is Reza’s attraction for Binta since she looks like his dead mother. When he was young, his mother abandoned him to live in Saudi Arabia. He has never gotten over this abandonment, forever referring to his mother as the “whore of Saudi.” Ibrahim balances these coiled and contradictory emotions with a frank depiction of sexuality for an older Muslim woman. Binta’s conflicts arise from her very human desires and the taboo nature of her illicit affair with Reza. Because the punishment for adultery is severe in the Muslim portion of Nigeria, the stakes are incredibly high.

  But the complications don’t end with the Binta-Reza affair. Her son is trying to arrange a marriage with an elderly man obsessed with BBC Radio. Meanwhile, the local senator will use Reza and his gang as political rabble-rousers. In Nigeria the political class uses its connection to criminal gangs to intimidate opponents. The nation itself is divided between Christian and Muslim sections. Binta’s family fled to a small village to escape the periodic flare-ups in Jos, Nigeria. Her husband was killed in one of these clashes. Whether from a politicized mob or a criminal gang, death is ever present in their daily lives.

  Season is written in a gorgeous tapestry of language, tying together large-scale historical events with the smaller more mundane activities of daily life. The novel sprawls like a work by Dickens, Zola, or John Lanchester. Ibrahim begins each chapter with a teasing epigram like, “A snake can shed its skin, but it will still remain a serpent.” Taking its time, the slow methodical pacing allows the novel to breathe. This allows the relationship to develop in a natural and realistic way.

  “After growing wings through indiscretion, Hajiya Binta, contrary to her expectation, did not transform into an eagle, but an owl that thrived on darkness in which she and Reza communed. Yet, during the day, she was caged by her fears, wrapped in the perceived miasma of her sin.”

  Numerous passages like these resound throughout the novel, melding a folktale lyricism to an ornate language. Abubakar Adam Ibrahim represents a talented new voice in contemporary Nigerian literature. He has created a crowded milieu, brimming with characters, set amid the political violence of Muslim Nigeria.

  Karl Wolff is currently the Staff Writer/Associate Editor for the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography. In 2013 CCLaP released his book, On Being Human, an exploration of the question, “What does it mean to be human?” investigating the question by looking at various pop cultural artifacts from science fiction dystopias to Beckett novels to roleplaying games.

• Critical Literature Review
  http://criticalliteraturereview.blogspot.com/2015/12/season-of-crimson-blossoms-by-abubakar.html
  Word count: 1369

  QUOTE:
  Season of Crimson Blossoms grippingly depicts the vagaries of life. It bares realities and its intricacies. It examines the moral rules we live by. Humanity could be confusing; the same rigid laws that guide us, snuff us out. In the manner characteristic of Victorian literature, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim explores a puritanical society. Interestingly, he portrays well the fragile veneer masking strict morality.
  You should read Season of Crimson Blossoms. There are so many things to love the book for.

  MONDAY, 14 DECEMBER 2015
  “Season of Crimson Blossoms” by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim

  ©Joseph Omotayo

  Season of Crimson Blossoms grippingly depicts the vagaries of life. It bares realities and its intricacies. It examines the moral rules we live by. Humanity could be confusing; the same rigid laws that guide us, snuff us out. In the manner characteristic of Victorian literature, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim explores a puritanical society. Interestingly, he portrays well the fragile veneer masking strict morality. The society portrayed in Season of Crimson Blossoms is typical of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Binta Zubairu and Hester Prynne share a striking similarity in their woes. This is how a puritanical society works: freedom is rejected for adherence; practicality is celebrated over sheer pleasure; the human will is heavily influenced by prescriptive religious mores. With that prescriptiveness, society turns against itself in its constant moralistic sanitization. Humanity is seen striving for divinity, and there lies the evil that ravages it. Humanity is humanity. The Supernatural is the Supernatural. When humans long to be preternatural, many things give. In Season of Crimson Blossoms, Binta Zabairu gives; Hassan ‘Reza’ Babale gives, and everything that surrounds their stormy relations.

  The novel is the story of love (lust?) in unexpected places. Like life, other things follow this. Binta is at the centre of a complex commotion that trudges to a dampened climax. In Binta’s self realisation, she constantly battles with her society. Nobody wins an African society easily. Ask Ezeulu in Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God. An African society heavily relies on the Ubuntu philosophy where personhood is only realized in communality. You are nothing outside the approval of your society. Binta breaches societal and religious norms, and the consequences are overwhelming. Beyond the travails Binta suffers and the boisterousness of San Siro are Nigerian politics and the consequent ethnic-religious crises. There is Senator Buba Maikudi, a roguish politician oozing grimes and candies from the same side of the mouth. The book uses riveting yet subtly dark humour to capture the entity called Nigeria. Yaro’s, Zubairu’s, and Fai’za’s parents’ lives serve as a counter-narrative to popular perspectives on the many ethnic-religious crises in the North. Season of Crimson Blossoms is a complete debut of everything wrecking a closely knitted society as ours. Above all, it lauds an individual’s will to rise above the conventional. Binta wills freedom here:

  “She wanted it to be different. She had always wanted it to be different. And so when he nudged her that night, instead of rolling on her back and throwing her legs apart, she rolled into him and reached for his groin. He instinctively moaned when she caressed his hardness and they both feared their first son, lying on a mattress would stir.
  What the hell are you doing? The words, half-barked, half whispered, struck her like a blow. He pinned her down and, without further rituals, lifted her wrapper. She turned her face to the wall and started counting. The tears slipped down the side of her closed eyes before she got to twenty.” (pg. 54)
  The above is not just sex. A woman’s soul is being gruesomely wrenched off. Sex in her home is following through duteous motions. One would have to understand the kind of society Binta is in to well appreciate the bravery Binta summons there, as she mounts her husband. Hers is a society driven by strict religious dicta: a society that normalizes the objectification of women; a society where you fuck your wife and she does this:

  “When he’s done, always put your legs up so his seed will run into your womb.” (pg. 51)
  You will cry here. No wetness. No pleasure. And Zubairu, Binta’s husband, just rams her on:

  “…when he was tossing and turning on the bed next to her, she knew he would nudge her with his knee and she would have to throw her legs open. He would lift her wrapper, spits into her crotch and mount her…She would count slowly under her breath, her eyes closed…And somewhere between sixty and seventy – always between sixty and seventy – he would grunt, empty himself and roll off her until he was ready to go again.” (pg. 53-54)
  I love the way language is used in this book. Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s use of language impresses. In fact, before you get yourself into the story, language hooks you first. In showing the way Binta breaks free, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim paints it well here:

  “Hajiya Binta Zubairu was finally born at fifty-five when a dark-lipped rogue with short, spiky hair, like a field of miniscule anthills scaled her fence and landed, boots and all, in the puddle that was her heart.” emphasis mine (pg. 3).
  You will love the poeticity of his language. Meanings are compressed and left to swell in your mind. Check this:

  “After growing wings through indiscretion, Hajiya Binta, contrary to her expectation, did not transform into an eagle, but an owl that thrived in the darkness in which she and Reza communed.” (pg. 123)

  My favourite in the book is how this everyday teenage act is simply shown:

  “…the girl was already up, wiping sleep from her eyes with a cotton ball dipped in facial cleanser.” (pg. 33)
  Everything in this novel reflects the postcolonial. I like this. The postcolonial always aims to deconstruct and break hegemony of discourses. Characters in this book de-stereotype societal held norms. There is a subtle attack on societal negative ancientness. Binta breaks Patriarchal power in many ways. An instance is the way she perpetually scorns Mallam Haruna’s proposition. Characters triumph in their complexities to challenge pigeonholing. Reza may be a street rogue and bestial political tool, however, the orderliness he enforces in San Siro shows an unconventional intellect at play. The lord of San Siro, a place where street scums trade in the illegal, Reza’s humanity shines off nevertheless. His soft spots for Binta and his familiar trauma are the two sides of him he struggles to manage.

  However, some of the many deconstructions in this book are not without their faults. In the overreaching attempt to stab stereotypes, Abubaka Adam Ibrahim seems to desperately over essentialise characters and incredulity stings you in the face. Some characters in this book shove unbelievable intellects into your face. The book takes it far when Reza sees the need to get Leila a book while in his captivity:

  “I found this on my way back yesterday at a second-hand bookseller’s. I thought you could do with something to read. Keep you company, you understand?” (pg. 284)
  It is Reza! Not Fai’za and her friends, who we know to love books. I find the passion Binta shows towards literary works unnatural. I see it as a belaboured attempt to elevate this character into something she is not. This is an imposed intellection, another place where deconstruction terribly fails. Consider this:

  “While dusting the small pile of books shelved on the little cupboard in the corner, her eyes fell on Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. But Binta picked out a Danielle Steel novel instead and tossed it on the couch…” (pg. 34)
  At a time in the book, she is seen philosophising about the old man’s struggle at sea, relating it to her own life. That part of her marvels me! What an intellectual!

  You should read Season of Crimson Blossoms. There are so many things to love the book for.

• Guardian Online
  https://guardian.ng/art/season-of-crimson-blossom-a-literary-criticism/
  Word count: 2340

  QUOTE:
  The novel explores the theme of love, heartbreak, hope, desire, the human condition and our collective humanity. It examines the moral rules we live by. In an intriguing and very colorful fashion, the novel dissects the fragile facade masking strict morality. It does a brilliant job telling a story that is both beautifully written and powerfully deconstructs stereotypes held by outsiders.
  All in all, this is a great work of fiction.

  Season of Crimson Blossom: A literary criticism
  November 6, 2016
  Jennifer Nagu
  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s debut novel, Season of Crimson Blossoms has been reviewed and rated spectacularly in recent times. Who would have thought that a first time novelist would defeat over 173 well-rounded authors to win the prestigious Nigerian prize for Literature, also taking along the $100,000 prize money.

  Ibrahim won by beating, Elnathan John’s ‘Born on a Tuesday’ and past winner Chika Unigwe ‘Night Dancer’. Some of his many accolades include being shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African writing, a BBC African performance prize winner, and the Amatu Braide Prize.
  Set in a conservative Hausa society, Season of Crimson Blossoms tells the story of a 55 year old widow who has an illicit affair with a street gang leader half her age. This Book got me wondering, how you paint a picture of lust and sexual desire between a 55year old widow and a man half her age, without making it feel offensive, incestuous, and repugnant to popular norms.
  Ibrahim encapsulated this perfectly.

  The novel explores the theme of love, heartbreak, hope, desire, the human condition and our collective humanity. It examines the moral rules we live by. In an intriguing and very colorful fashion, the novel dissects the fragile facade masking strict morality. It does a brilliant job telling a story that is both beautifully written and powerfully deconstructs stereotypes held by outsiders.
  Set in conservative Northern Nigeria, the titillating affair between 55-year-old widow Binta Zubairu a 26 year-old political thug with the very unusual name Hassan ‘Reza’ is one story to reckon with.

  Binta is a widow in her fifties who is respected for her adherence to the Islamic faith. Her son moved her to the outskirts of Abuja, because of the Clash which had begun in Jos where they had been living. In Abuja, she lived with her teenage niece Fa’iza and granddaughter Ummi who had just started going to school. The minors are staying with her as a result of the struggles that affect their part of the country. Beyond that, Binta still feels the desire to redeem herself for the loss of her first son, whose tragic death still haunts her.

  Reza on the other hand is notorious thug. He is the lead thug at the San Siro, a local hideout for a bunch of not outstanding members of Nigerian society that specialize in all manner of frivolous acts like mugging and selling drugs. They are also on the payroll of a roguish local politician; Senator Buba Maikudi, who uses them whenever there, is the need for enforcers at political rallies. He also deploys them to carry out other dangerous and dubious activities behind the scenes.

  The two meet while Reza tries to rob Binta in her home. She mistakenly walks in on him in the course of the robbery. On seeing her, he also steals more stuff from her and takes off into the late afternoon.

  Eventually, Reza feels remorseful at stealing from the older lady, who incidentally reminds him of his mother. On the other side, Binta is reminded of her son Yaro who passed on a decade and half ago, who was also a thug. This eventually rekindles Binta’s passions and strikes an endless array of sexual indulgence between the pair.

  As word of his unwholesome liaison with the widow, spreads and draws condemnation and social Ostracisation for Binta, things get to a head when her rich son confronts the thug with a disastrous consequence. Here Binta breaches societal and religious norms and the consequence must be felt.

  The weird dynamic was that their escapades had a sort of incestuous look to it. She reminded him of the mother who abandoned him and he reminded her of her son who died in her arms; a child she was never able to call by his given name which was a tradition of not naming first children by their first name. There is indeed a thin line between chastity and sexuality.

  Season of Crimson Blossoms is a complete debut of everything destroying a seemingly upright society. Binta is at the center of a complex commotion that trudges to a climax. Here she constantly battles her society and the laws that guide its beliefs. She craves for freedom and, in a bid to rise above the conventional she breaks free.

  In Season of Crimson Blossoms there are many love stories. The author loves the people and the land of his ancestors and it shows. It is a mesmerizing work of fiction housing a love story. This book is written with respect and love slathered all over it. We are not talking the chocolates, cheesy poetry, flowers and impossible sex positions mimicry that is the staple of most African writers of romance fiction. This is a true love story of the heart, set among a people in Northern Nigeria who live simply under complex and challenging situations.

  The dialogue between lovers is lovely and heartfelt, this reader’s loins and heart stirred. The burden of the book’s plot is the love story between Binta and Reza, the young thug. Love thaws both their hearts and the result is quite enchanting. It is more complex than your run of the mill love story; by the end of the book, you would have learned a lot about the human condition, life in Northern Nigeria, daily existence soaked in a religion (Islam. This is fiction the way it was intended, expertly written in the third person, not the pretend fiction or thinly veiled biographical mush of the first person, the staple of many African writers. As an added benefit, it is flush with well-researched history; many of today’s actors in Nigeria’s political scene feature in the book – and not in a good way (corruption, electoral violence, etc.).

  Also, Hajiya Binta, the widow, is not presented as an object of vile, but as a person to be still respected; it is easy to understand and forgive her. Even the character of Reza, the rogue, tends to obtain compassion and understanding from the reader despite his brutality. This affirms Ibrahim’s brave creative dexterity, creating captivating characters that drive the plot through a well-portrayed setting.

  The book explores some other themes. From complications vs implications, bond vs blood, widowhood and marriage in northern Nigeria as well as the importance of Information and education. The theme of political corruption and pollution cannot be discussed enough.
  This book is highly informative as one is able to relate to the socio- political pollution of the immediate environment of the characters especially that of Reza, Gattuso and Joe. One can only agree with the author that there are political implications as well as historical consequences of the ignorance of the people in the Northern Nigeria.

  The language used in the book is one that blows my mind. The language truly is one of my favorite aspects of this novel. The book is rich in proverbs from the northern region displaying the richness of the culture. Before I knew where the story was going, I was captivated by the language. The story opens thus:

  “Hajiya Binta Zubairu was finally born at fifty-five when a dark-lipped rogue with short, spiky hair, like a field of minuscule anthills, scaled her fence and landed, boots and all, in the puddle that was her heart.”
  Meanings are hidden and left to challenge the average mind. You will appreciate the poet city of his language here as well.
  “ After growing wings through her descretion, Hajiya bInta, contrary to her expectation did not transform into an eagle, but an owl that thrived in the darkness in which she and Reza communed,”
  (Pg 123)
  Also the use of code mixing as a speech style of usage and even the coming together of two or more linguistic expressions was brilliant. People may also see it as a literary use aesthetics or emphasis. For example, “Oh trust me you won’t want your wife smelling of all the makamashi: all that burnt rubber and whatnot” (Pg 106)

  The Author also combined lexicons and vernacular in a most laudable form. For example, “ you dey look me? No be good thing? No be him dismiss me from police, say I no competent. If to say I see am, I for shoot am to pieces myself (Pg. 50)

  Furthermore, the entire novel reads in an authentic voice that would have been distorted if written from a different angle. The angle that the novel was written from was most obvious in several phrases and sentences scattered throughout the novel. These phrases were written in the characters’ native Hausa, sometimes several in every page. For people who do not speak Hausa and or who are unfamiliar with all aspects of Islam, some phrases might seem new and thus slow down your understanding of the story by a notch. It would be however an eye opener to new aspects of the conservative Hausa orientation.

  On the other hand, the average Nigerian Muslim would have a much easier time reading through the story because much of it would be intimately familiar to their experience. Some readers may be turned off by how non-western the story and overall tone of this novel is. But they would be doing themselves a disservice by rejecting a story simply because it is foreign to their experience. I encourage westerners specifically to shift away from ethnocentrism because viewing the world through a familiar lens may hinder personal growth. We should all strive to expand our cognitive and intellectual boundaries beyond our areas of comfort.

  Because of the pace, this book is not the type that would keep you up late night feverishly trying to get to the unlikely conclusion.
  It is the kind of book I found myself pausing and doing other tasks even as it went to its climax. What the book does is show everyone going through varied situations like those portrayed in the book that they are not alone. The characters cry, they are have mental breakdowns, they indulge themselves sexually, and have petty jealousies. These are human beings in spite of what they dress in, be it the hijab or other clothing prescribed by their religion.
  All in all, this is a great work of fiction. An excerpt from the novel is reproduced below:

  Binta had noted Mallam Haruna’s unease right from when he offered to stand guard over her and wave away the midges tormenting her with the tail of his kaftan. He had backed down immediately when he saw the shocked expression on her face. Then he had spent five minutes trying to tell her how important it was for a man to protect the woman he loved from ‘all enemies’.

  That was how he got talking about scorpions and how he had been stung three times in the past. He punctuated his gory tale of feverish nights fighting off the venom with little nervous chortles.

  Then he had attempted to mount his cap on her head, right on top of her hijab. It was so unheralded that she had wanted to flee.
  ‘Is there something wrong with you this evening?’
  ‘Oh no, not at all. Just wondering what you would look like with my cap on you.’
  She gaped at him, as if she had somehow contrived to see through his skull and discovered that his cranium was packed full of semi-deflated balloons.
  He seemed oblivious to her stare. ‘You know I am the best cap washerman in this corner of the world, wallahi.’

  He went into a fractured narrative about how he had learned how to wash caps in Maiduguri when he had been an almajiri and how he had married his first wife as ladan noma.
  Binta’s mind drifted. She wondered what she could do to get rid of Hureira since her husband had refused to come for her. She contemplated several possibilities, none of them practical, and concluded that other than escorting Hureira back to her own house, she had no choice but to accept that her daughter might end up permanently stationed in Fa’iza’s room, while her matrimonial home in Jos collected the harmattan dust.

  When her mind wandered back, Mallam Haruna was talking about his third or fourth son making a living driving a white man around Port Harcourt, and how he had been in an accident and now limped like a three-legged dog.

  She felt his hand on her shoulder, a light slap at first and then the hand slid down just a bit.
  ‘Mosquito,’ he grinned.

  The cat meowed, almost half-heartedly. It used its front paw to wipe its head, took several steps and then bounded off the fence, into Mama Efe’s side of the wall.

  Mallam Haruna launched into yet another disjointed narrative on how best to deal with the pestilence of mosquitoes using dried orange rinds sprinkled on embers. Then he reached out and slapped another mosquito on her back and yet again, his hand tarried.

  • Jennifer, an independent freelance writer based in Lagos. She can be reached through nagujennifer@gmail.com

• Entropy
  https://entropymag.org/season-of-crimson-blossoms-by-abubakar-adam-ibrahim/
  Word count: 594

  SEASON OF CRIMSON BLOSSOMS BY ABUBAKAR ADAM IBRAHIM
  written by Joseph Houlihan October 30, 2017

  Season of Crimson Blossoms
  by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim
  Cassava Republic Press, 2017
  Amazon

  In Season of Crimson Blossoms by the Northern Nigerian writer Abubakar Adam Ibrahim an older woman falls in love with an impetuous and aggressive younger man. Their union challenges her conservative culture and values, and brings a different meaning into her life. This is the plot of a classic melodrama. It is almost another retelling of Douglas Sirk’s classic 1956 film Written on the Wind. But the novel offers something fresh and exciting. Season of Crimson Blossoms is notable in its use of traditional plotting to examine the contemporary moods of Northern Nigeria.

  The story follows Binka, a matriarch of a family diminished by political and social upheaval. She has raised her children according to tradition. Her life changes after her home is robbed at knife point. The assailant, Reza, returns. And the two begin a fractured and transgressive relationship.

  The novel is very funny. And Ibrahim has a great sense of picking up on the silliness of contemporary Nigerian culture (endless political intrigue, telephone headsets under hijabs, and the lavish gold chains of music videos) alongside traditional squabbles (food that tastes better cooked in a wood fire, superstitions around uttering names). He has a terrific ear for dialogue, and obviously adores the quirks and fancies he skewers in satire.

  Not just a retelling of Written on the Wind, this novel presents an expansive and cinematic vision that transforms as it describes. The gift of the Hollywood language, for better or worse, is the gift of the possibility of a globalized culture.

  Melodrama has always been central to the American narrative language. In 1998, the film critic and scholar Linda Williams wrote about the difficulty of teaching Greek tragedies to American students: tragic fate is inevitable and not related to wrongdoing. The morality of Hollywood comes across as clearer, and certainly less ambivalent. These melodramas have roots in the 19th century bourgeois novel of Henry James, Charles Dickens, and Henri Balzac, as well as in the cabaret theater of horse and buggy scenarios. So the language of melodrama has a certain American aspect to it.

  Melodrama is defined by a kind of pathetic excess or solipsism. This provokes the same catharsis as traditional tragedy but does not seek grounding in “reality” or the “real.” One of the most interesting aspects of the ironic melodrama is the way that a bold and capital letter annunciation of a cultural truth inevitably makes that truth absurd. So that the language of certainty is undermined even as it is spoken. Melodrama is not ingenuous or devoid of sarcasm; it does not purport to describe reality, rather to evince an emotional response towards a certain end. The solipsism of melodrama reveals some of the knots in our language culture, even as it tightens those knots. In the words of pogo, we have met the enemy and he is us: solipsism, bathos, kitsch.

  One of the most essential elements of this novel is the way it normalizes desire. For a culture that lives by very traditional and formal modes of address, this is not nothing. Thanks to Ibrahim, the story of Binka is not something dark and unspeakable, but, however ineffable, essentially common. Desire is that thing that moves our bodies through the world and it’s with us as long as we live.

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