Book Review: Abandoned

By Maryam Shehu (Reviewer)

Northern Nigeria (Arewa) has long been defined by traditions of hospitality, communal bonds, and the practice of sending children to makarantun allo, though often in forms markedly different from contemporary realities. In Abandoned, a collection of ten short stories, Aliyu Yakubu draws from these lived experiences and renders them with quiet urgency. At a time when northern narratives are frequently marginalised or flattened into stereotypes, this work stands as a deliberate and necessary intervention, affirming the right of these stories to be told with nuance, depth, and authorial ownership.

Departing from much contemporary fiction that privileges romance or distant, idealised lives, Abandoned is firmly rooted in familiar sociocultural landscapes, particularly across Northern Nigeria. Yakubu chronicles tragic yet recognisable lives—people we encounter daily, live among, and continually struggle to understand or redeem. Central to these narratives is a vision of love and compassion that transcends religious boundaries. This is most powerfully illustrated in the story of George, a poor orphan devastated by loss and a destructive fire outbreak, who ultimately finds refuge in the home of Habib, his Muslim friend. The episode subtly but forcefully recalls an older Arewa moral order, one in which shared humanity precedes doctrinal difference.

The opening story, Knocks on the Gate, unsettles the reader from the outset. Though expansive in form, it issues a cautionary meditation on generosity in a climate of pervasive insecurity. A man who offers shelter to a stranger is later stabbed, a narrative turn that does not condemn kindness but instead compels readers to grapple with fear, trust, and the risks now attached to values once held as sacred.

Yakubu’s command of brevity is evident throughout the collection. Many stories conclude at moments of heightened tension, sustaining suspense and inviting reflection beyond the page. However, this restraint is not uniformly maintained. In The Bawdyhouse, the prose veers toward hyperbole, portraying the brothel as a space where men’s labour is consumed by the exploitation of girls scarcely older than sixteen, themselves victims of forced marriages. The explicit sensuality of the narration raises an ethical tension between literary realism and reader responsibility, a discomfort that lingers and provokes necessary debate.

The overall simplicity of the language—marked by accessible yet deliberate diction—renders the book broadly approachable, potentially even for senior secondary school readers. Nonetheless, the central story Abandoned and The Bawdyhouse may pose concerns at that level, as their thematic intensity risks overshadowing pedagogical value. This tension does not diminish the collection’s merit; rather, it highlights the delicate balance between truthful storytelling and audience readiness.

Geographically, the stories move fluidly across Nasarawa, Abuja, Kaduna, and surrounding communities. Collectively, they engage lives and experiences often relegated to whispers or deliberate silence. Yakubu gathers these fragmented realities—makarantun allo, the disrupted almajiri system, and the quiet fractures within communal life—and shapes them into resonant literary art. The result is a body of work that refuses denial and leaves impressions that endure well beyond the final page.

Recurring themes such as marriage despite known genotype incompatibilities and the enduring scars of the almajiri system, explored in Deflated Balloon of Empathy and The Stolen Innocence, speak directly to shared social anxieties. Without overt moralising, the stories invite readers to confront uncomfortable questions that are frequently avoided. Marriage, as a central institution, and the persistent struggle of women to find peace and fulfilment within it, emerge as some of the collection’s most enduring concerns. Through Hindatu, readers mourn the loss of a husband and father while simultaneously sensing a fragile liberation—a duality that binds grief and freedom in quiet tension.

In Is She Doing Drugs?, greater narrative refinement might have yielded a more compelling exploration of depression and its intimacy with lived experience. Even so, the attempt reflects a commendable willingness to address mental health without romanticisation.

Yakubu writes with an economy that resists ornamentation, favouring narratives that echo pain yet arrive with subdued resolution. In Abandoned, the long-silenced hunter finally speaks, challenging the dominance of a single story that has for too long honoured only the lion. The collection asserts, with calm insistence, that silence is no longer tenable and that the act of telling uncomfortable truths is itself a form of justice.

Title: Abandoned
Author: Aliyu Yakubu
Pages: 138
Reviewer: Maryam Shehu
Date: 4 January 2026