With the success of movies like Femi Adebayo’s 2023 Netflix epic, Jagun Jagun, it is clear that we’re witnessing a Yoruba language renaissance in film, especially through works that are created to acknowledge the intellect of their audiences. Seeing this, the question arises: Can Yoruba literature enjoy the same fate?
I had my first taste of Yoruba literature, particularly the novel form, during a Christmas visit to a great-aunt in 2009 when my family moved to Ibadan in Oyo State. Already a bibliophile who had also mastered the Yoruba diacritics/tonal marks, I found Alágbárí, amongst the huge heaps of books in the room where her husband stored the books he distributed. I remember being so enthralled by this novel that I no longer cared for the merriment going on around me. My great-uncle, impressed, ended up gifting me the book since I couldn’t finish reading it by the time we were leaving two days later. The second novel I would read was Debo Awe’s Kanna Kánná which I borrowed or more accurately, rescued from mouldering in an aunt’s house. I would go on to read many more novels I could find―which constituted the ones from my school’s library, the ones someone’s parents or much older siblings used in primary and secondary schools, and the rejected ones I rescued from the people’s houses or worse, dusty grounds. However, I didn’t get completely exposed to the works of renowned writers like D.O Fagunwa, Adebayo Faleti, and Oladejo Okediji until Àkàgbádùn...
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