Fiction · No. 1

The Lies We Tell

by Fatima Bala

Synopsis

The Lies We Tell is a fierce, dazzling, heartbreaking collection of stories set across the motor parks, matrimonial bedrooms, and candlelit hostels of Northern Nigeria. From the dye pits of Zaria to the rooftops of Abuja, Fatima Bala pulls back the curtain on the secret architecture of Hausa women's lives, the bargains made in silence, the truths swallowed whole, the love offered and withheld and weaponised across generations. Spirits move through these pages alongside pharmacists and politicians. Grandmothers whisper to unseen things. Girls become women and women become ghosts, and some, only some, find their way back. Written in a voice that crackles with wit, grief, and an almost unbearable tenderness, these stories ask the question no proverb has ever answered: when the lie is the only thing holding everything together, is it still wrong to tell it?

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About the Author

Fatima Bala

Fatima Bala writes stories about complicated people making questionable decisions under the watchful eye of culture, family, memory, and occasionally, aunties. She is the bestselling author of Broken: Not a Halal Love Story and Hafsatu Bebi and is known for emotionally sharp fiction set against the textured realities of Northern Nigeria. When she isn’t lecturing or writing, she’s probably playing boardgames, overthinking fictional characters, buying more books than her shelf space allows, or convincing herself that starting another manuscript is a perfectly reasonable life choice. She lives between Nigeria and Canada with her husband and children.