Safiya Ismaila Yero’s novel Naja is a coming-of-age novel chronicling what it is to be young, female and powerless in patriarchal northern Nigeria. Naja is smart, strong-willed and persistently hankering after more than being an old man’s wife at age sixteen. A chance meeting with an older more educated woman opens up the world to Naja in very unexpected ways. This novel is an important one with its focus on contemporary northern Nigeria and its echoes of Zaynab Alkali and Mariama Ba. - Toni Kan, Novelist