Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / NewStats: 3,195,357 members, 7,957,962 topics. Date: Wednesday, 25 September 2024 at 05:56 AM |
Nairaland Forum / Entertainment / Jokes Etc / Short Story (323 Views)
Short Story With Pictures"no More Nonsense" / A Short Story In 3 Slides !!! / A Short Story With Pictorial Illustrations. (2) (3) (4)
(1) (Reply)
Short Story by Nobody: 6:22pm On May 04, 2021 |
Yakubu would be a card-carrying
feminist if they made Hausa versions,
though a Western feminist might expect
her heroine to stand on her own,
without a man. But family is
everything in northern Nigeria, and
realizing the strength of this choice
means that feminism can also
encompass more than narrow,
preconceived definitions.
Kano, the traditional Muslim city where
Yakubu and other writers live and the
largest in northern Nigeria, is a few
states over and a couple of hours’ drive
from the epicenter of the conflict
between Boko Haram and the Nigerian
Army that jumps in and out of the
headlines. When I got there, I sought
out writers like Yakubu, as well as
other women, not only taking formal
portraits but also photographing them
during their daily lives.
I wanted my photos to run parallel to
the novels, so I went to weddings,
photographed the kind of dowry
exchanges that the books describe at
length, and looked for colors and
moments that echoed the aesthetics of
the books. I looked for happy moments
at weddings, sad moments of loss, and,
whenever I could get a little closer, I’d
look for whimsy, fantasy, escape, and
pride.
I also wanted my pictures to give a
sense of what a place looks like and
feels like. In some ways, Kano isn’t a
pretty city—it’s grimy, dusty, there’s
trash on the streets, and it’s often very
hot and uncomfortable. But then I
would meet these women wearing such
incredibly beautiful clothes, with henna
on their hands and soft light falling on
their faces. That was what I wanted to
capture: the metallic pink of a lipstick,
the sequins on a gown, or a book cover
on a bedside table.
In 2007, the then state governor of
Kano publicly burned books and said
they were contributing to moral
indecency among the youth. (He’s now
Nigeria’s minister of education.) The
Hisbah, the Islamic morality police,
started censoring the books and
requiring writers to register with and
seek approval from a state censorship
board.
Just last week, Boko Haram was in the
headlines again after a few months of
quiet. They burned down a village in
northern Nigeria and may have burned
children alive. Most of the schoolgirls
they abducted en masse from the town
of Chibok in 2014 remain missing.
Nigeria’s currency fluctuates, and hard
times may be ahead.
This is the context of these pictures, but
it is not the content of these pictures.
Sometimes I think I should be
photographing those things, but what
happens to our understanding of other
people and places when the only thing
we know is the worst thing that ever
happened there? Would we have
different priorities and ideas about the
world around us if we also knew what
kind of lipstick women wear, what a
wedding looks like, and what they draw
on the cover of their romance novels?
Glenna Gordon is publishing a book of
these photos and stories called Diagram
of the Heart. It comes out on February
11.
In keeping with the theme of love,
Proof has also featured Gordon’s
photographs of Nigerian weddings. See
them here.
ALL PHOTOGRAPHS BY GLENNA GORDON
Author Hadiza Sani Garba works on her
novels in bed or in her sitting room,
writing by hand in small composition
books.
BY GLENNA GORDON
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 9, 2016
• 9 MIN READ
Novelist Farida Ado at her home
Stacks of books are piled up in a storage room
in Kano before they’re taken to the market.
Littattafan soyayya covers
During the wedding fatiha ceremony of a
village girl, a contract is announced and the
men of the village say prayers and recite
blessings. Women rarely interact with men
who are not their relatives. |
(1) (Reply)
The Oldest Nairalander!!! / Catch Cruise � / How's Your Data Consumption Nairalanders?
(Go Up)
Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 12 |