Who says you can't make it?

 Kano, Nigeria -She moved from being an illiterate child bride to a famous Nigerian novelist. She was taken out of primary school at the age of 12 to marry a man in his 40s whom she had never met before. At first, Balaraba Ramat Yakubu enjoyed the presents she received at the wedding and the golden ornaments decorating her new home, but she had no idea what marriage was about. Read more and see more photos after cut.
Today, that illiterate girl who didn't even know how to boil water and who, one year and eight months after the wedding, was finally sent back to her father's house in disgrace, has become one of northern Nigeria's most well-known writers and the first female Hausa-language author to be translated into English. "If you know where I came from, you'll realise how much I have fought," says the 57-year-old author of nine novels.

Resentment resounds in her voice when she speaks of the end of her first marriage. "It still pains me," she says. "My husband never told me that he loved me, that he wanted me. And then one day someone just came and took me back to my parents.
"He said I was too young. Didn't he know that when he married a child?" According to a National Literacy Survey from 2010, almost half of the women in northern Nigeria cannot read or write in any language.
The only reason Yakubu attended primary school at all was because her mother had sent her there in secret. At the time, she recalls, she was the only girl among her grandfather's 80 female grandchildren who went to primary school. When her father discovered it, his response was the arranged marriage. Her own struggle to regain control over her life and claim her voice as a woman has made Yakubu an outspoken advocate of women's rights. She sees northern women claiming more and more public territory. At one time, she was the only female writer in Kano; now, the local association for women authors that she founded in 2005 counts more than 200 members.
 "These days, we have women in politics, business and the military. We even have female pilots. To the West, it might not seem like much. But to women here, it is progress."
With the enrolment of girls in schools and universities on the rise, she is optimistic that the position of women will improve. The next generation of women will continue the struggle more effectively, she thinks. Who says you can't make it?
Source: Aljazeera

Nine novels she has written

In a picture with her third child, photo of her other kids on the wall