Nearly All the Emergency Lovers of Nigerian Literature Are Dishonest

A writer shares pictures of her sensationally titled forthcoming novel, Husband is Dead, along with the book’s synopsis. We learn that the novel’s protagonist, Sade, is twice married. First, ‘to cover a shame that was never hers to begin with’ which might imply an unplanned pregnancy or an arranged marriage of sorts, and later on because she apparently ‘needed to have a husband’. Somewhere in the course of the second marriage, she stumbles on forbidden love, and suddenly, life is a whoopsie. A blurb from The Early Reader Review says the book is ‘told in the language Nigerians actually speak,’ a vague, nothingburger statement that would be intriguing if reactions from these same Nigerians hadn’t been largely negative. 

On X, that folkloric home of tribulations, and elsewhere, the book’s author, Chinkemkasimma Cassidy Chukwuma, has been beset with colourful statements from all sides. Emergency lovers of Nigerian Literature trooped to the battlefield to defend their stake in this supposed national crisis. Assuming you haven’t already seen these responses, here’s a rundown of the most common commentary: I. A man writing a similar book would draw more ire. II. Books of this nature are indicative of radical feminism and misandry arising in the country. III. It’s deliberately sensationally titled to attract readers. Comments on the second item either assumed Chukwuma’s sexual orientation to be queer, alluded to septum rings as a common denominator for similar views, envisioned a future where she seeks marriage out hand-in-mouth, or invoked the ‘absent father’ trope. Conservative generalisations in a pretentious and performative society. We’ll put that aside for a separate essay. Instead, let’s consider the literary implications for Nigeria. 

It would be dishonest to ignore the supposed surge in sensational titles within our literary space. In July 2024, literary critic Chimezie Chika penned an extensive essay on the subject, interrogating what he felt had become a trend and its implications for the literary scene as a whole. His essay surmised that while titles aren’t always reflective of the quality of a work of literature, the more recent output—books like Damilare Kuku’s Nearly All The Men in Lagos Are Mad and Only Big Bum Bum Matters Tomorrow,  and Chioma Rosemary Madumere’s Wives Are for Rainy Days; Side-Chicks Are for Best Days!—have encountered mixed to negative critical reception. Per his estimate, some authors probably opt for outlandish titles in hopes of riding the wave of success of someone like Kuku, whose debut novel has consistently been in the Rovingheights/Open Country Magazine’s Bestselling List since 2022. 

Going by anecdotal evidence alone, it’s difficult to discard Chika’s concerns about the literary quality. However subjective literature may be, it still follows certain rules and can be held to standards beyond the beauty of cover illustrations. This writer has read Nearly All The Men In Lagos Are Mad and would be remiss to suggest that it be placed in the company of elite short story collections. The characters lack depth. The prose is unengaging. The author leans on shock value as a Hail Mary for the stereotypical cocoon of serial cheats, making Nnamdi Ehirim’s The Brevity of Beautiful Things and Chiemeka Garricks’ A Broken People’s Playlist seem elevated in comparison. But if you need even more evidence of these books’ disparate literary merit, consider the lack of engagement from critics—many not even caring enough to write essays in the first place. Also note that a writer like Kuku has acknowledged this mixed critical reception in her 2025 The Republic interview. Further evidence is how rarely these books have made shortlists for literary prizes, or their authors reached  prestigious publications and literary magazines on the basis of individual stories. 

As an aside, this niche of sensationalist titles—Kuku books, if you may—shouldn’t be conflated with ‘chick lit.’ ‘Chick lit’ is a sub-genre of contemporary female-written literature with lighthearted themes, mostly romance. They might overlap, as in the case of Lizzie Damilola Blackburn’s Yinka, Where is Your Huzband?, but they’re far from being one and the same. Technically, Oyinkansola Braithwaite’s My Sister the Serial Killer, a horror novella that’s appeared on The New York Times 50 Best Thrillers of the 21st Century list, is chick lit, as are many other prominent novels. At the risk of outsourcing validation to a ‘Western publication,’ it would be unwise to say that all books in this category aren’t worth their time in the sun. And if anyone insists on this, it’s not hard to see why. 

With regard to the deliberate sensationalist titles being a sales driver, appearances on the Bestsellers’ lists suggest otherwise. In 2022, excluding Kuku’s releases, only 2 others of these titles made the Top 100 list (Yinka, Where is Your Huzband? at 12 and Hymar David’s I For Don Blow But I Too Dey Press Phone at 62); in 2023 3 others did (Yinka, Where is Your Huzband? at 13, Ugochukwu Ugonna’s Who Drove Nearly All Lagos Men Mad? at 21, and Wives Are for Rainy Days; Side-Chicks Are for Best Days! at 95); in 2024 4 others did (Alexandria Humphrey’s Nigerian Men Will Stain Your White at 29, Who Drove Nearly All Lagos Men Mad? dropping to 59, Yemi Odunfa’s Don’t Tell Daddy What Happened in Lagos at 96, and Wives Are For Rainy Days dropping to 100); and  in 2025 1 other did ( Don’t Tell Daddy rising to 84). These inconsistent figures suggest that the Kuku books are outliers—her latest Women Rent Men and Secrets Here didn’t even break the 2025 Top 5. They also reveal that there are barely enough of such titles published to constitute a substantial trend in the first place. Less than ten of these titles per year gain prominence even within literary circles. For context, unpopular as they are, even poetry titles performed better than these sensational fiction novels. So, there really isn’t substantial empirical evidence to call for a witchhunt.

Compare this trend to others like the rise of the romance genre in the past three years, the wave of anguish-ladden female-centric novels, the emergence of diaspora narratives before that, or the abundance of ‘trauma porn’ literature that elicited seminal essays like Binyanvanga Wainaina’s How to Write About Africa. You don’t have to scour the internet extensively for a twenty-book list defending these claims. It’s dishonest to ignore the sensationalia altogether, but it is even more dishonest to treat them with perilous concern. 

The literary scene has more important problems to tackle, some of which have already circulated as topics of discussion in 2026. It is more pertinent to address issues like Nigerian readers lacking access to literature—whether finer, well-curated publications or even these ‘sensational’ books. A copy of Husband is Useless  costs ₦11,500 to pre-order. As culture critic and author Carl Tever’s essay on the middle class problem of Nigerian writing so aptly explains, such a price is only affordable by sections of the middle class and upper class. And that’s ignoring distribution challenges, among other issues. There’s piracy, as well, the last resort for enthusiastic readers hampered by thin wallets and purses. Publisher Masobe launched their Book App in March 2026, using a model previously explored by OkadaBooks (2013-2023) and Bambooks (2018-2025). Since then, the App’s most basic subscription plan has increased from ₦1,999 to ₦6,999. So, what exactly are we talking about here? 

There aren’t enough of these books being published to constitute a literary concern. And if people must critique—and we must, else unknowledgeable arbiters of taste lead readers astray—we can do so without equally sensational overgeneralisations and woe-betide-us proclamations. Especially not in a year like this where more focus should go towards celebrating the remarkable titles that made the 2026 NLNG Nigerian Prize for Literature longlist. Permitting casual consumers of literature to offer post-mortems of genre fiction is a greater sin than the yearly autopsies we carry out for Nigerian literature. At least their excuse is that they don’t read enough. The self-acclaimed literati have no excuse for being swept away by the wave of rhetoric about what such books portend for Nigerian literature—that again, without even broaching why such books deserve their place in the sun, to begin with. Or whether or not, beneath the dreary prose, topical subjects are being addressed. Instead, let’s raise dust, pretending that ‘wicked feminist’ books are overflowing in our bookstores.