This chapter looks at the development of Hausa written literature from the formative stages to its modern status, beginning with a critical analysis of the dynamism and fluidity of the very identity of “Hausaness” it seeks to represent, as well as the sociohistorical and political conditions that have influenced its evolution over time, which demonstrate an important interplay between history, literature, language, and society. In mainstream Hausa scholarship, Hausaland has traditionally been seen to include northern Nigeria and, on rare occasions, Niger. This relatively narrow focus on the West African region populated by the Hausa people will be maintained in this chapter. But this demographic space will also be interrogated as a way of opening up new possibilities in the study of literary activities in the Hausa language in the Hausa diaspora, in places like the Sudan, Northern Ghana, and the Middle East, and of comparative literary experiences between the Hausa “motherland” and the Hausa diaspora.

Hausaness: language, culture, and identity

Hausaness as an identity does not encompass a monolithic unit. It is a convergence that reflects Ali Mazrui’s notion of a triple heritage of indigenous African, Islamic, and European elements, and which extends, historically, from pre-Islamic, precolonial time to the present era. Demographically, it incorporates descendants of the original Hausa seven states, the descendants of other ethnic groups such as the Fulani, Arab, Tamajaq, and Nupe who have been linguistically and culturally assimilated as a result of sociohistorical contact, political affiliations, intermarriages, and other more recent “converts” in the region arising from both colonial and postcolonial dynamics.