Parallel Worlds: Reflective Womanism in Balaraba Ramat Yakubu's Ina Son Sa Haka

Abstract

With Ina Son Sa Haka (I Love Him All The Same) Ms Balaraba Ramat Yakubu’s new novel (Privately published in Kano, Nigeria, 2001), Ms. Ramat returns to a familiar territory she so adroitly explored in Wa Zai Auri Jahila? (Who Will Marry An Ignoramus?, Gaskiya Corporation, Zaria, Nigeria, 1990). The similarities between the two novels are so striking that, as we shall see later, Ina Son Sa Haka is a continuation of Ms. Ramat’s autobiographical odyssey into the repressive world of forced marriages among the Hausa. Ina Son Sa Haka uses similar plot elements, similar characterization, but different narration.