Book Review: The phoenix always rises
There is a particular kind of song that does not merely entertain but testifies. “Woman,” a hit by one of Nigeria’s greatest vocalists, Simi, is one such song. Its lyrics—“Woman
- By Sima Essien
There is a particular kind of song that does not merely entertain but testifies. “Woman,” a hit by one of Nigeria’s greatest vocalists, Simi, is one such song. Its lyrics—“Woman don suffer oh / Lowo everybody / Suffer suffer for world (amen) / Enjoy for heaven”— ring with the bruised candour of lived experience, cataloguing the perpetual tribulations of womanhood with a weariness that is equal parts resigned and defiant. It is a melody that could well serve as the recurring refrain for Yemi Hanson’s play, Moróúnmúbọ̀: Beauty From Ashes, a work whose thematic heartbeat is the plight of being a woman in a deeply patriarchal and misogynistic society.
Yemi Ajagbe, now Yemi Hanson, is a Nigerian author, editor, and academic from Ogbomoso South, Oyo State. She is a prolific writer whose published works include this play, her second publication. Her debut prose work, The Triumph of Childhood Trials, sold thousands of copies and was procured by the government under the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) for free distribution in parts of Northern Nigeria—a considerable endorsement of its literary and educational merit. Her third book, King Little Finger and Other Stories, an anthology of children’s short stories, was considered for the 2021 ANA Prize for Children’s Literature.
With Moróúnmúbọ̀: Beauty From Ashes, Hanson stakes her claim as a writer unafraid to engage the gravest social concerns of her time. In this play, Hanson echoes the novelist Buchi Emecheta’s unflinching identification of women as “second-class citizens.” At its core, the play revolves around the systematic subjugation, objectification, and dehumanisation of women, and how some women seek to subvert this broken system through resistance, agency, and the pursuit of social justice. It is an unflinching examination of suffering and survival, one that does not flinch from the ugliness of the world it depicts.
The play’s title itself rewards attention. Moróúnmúbọ̀ is a Yoruba name that translates to “I brought a treasure back” or “I brought a gift back.” It is a name typically bestowed upon children born after a long, successful, or significant journey, signifying that the parent returned from a sojourn with a valuable blessing. In essence, it is a name of joy, thanksgiving, and gratitude for a precious addition to the family, the child rendered as a brought-home prize of extraordinary worth.
At the opening, Moróúnmúbọ̀ is a young girl living with her mother, Tanwa, in a state of abject poverty and decadent living. With the natural, unfiltered curiosity that is the preserve of children, she questions the realities of their circumstances, prompting Tanwa to bemoan her past travails at the hands of men. Incensed by her mother’s anguish, Moróúnmúbọ̀ swears vengeance upon all men, but Tanwa tempers this outburst with hard-earned wisdom, noting that “not all men are devils, just as not every woman is a saint.” Already, the play establishes its central proposition: in the world it reflects, the worst misfortune that can befall any human being is to be born female into a strongly patriarchal environment. Even as Tanwa educates her daughter on the capacity of women to overturn the odds through resilience—to make lemonade out of lemons—the reader understands that doing so demands exceptional grit and daring.
The play then diverges into flashbacks, unspooling Tanwa’s life story from its very origins. The circumstances surrounding her birth are themselves telling: Tanwa’s mother, Jenrola, was threatened by her husband, Adisa, with expulsion from her matrimonial home should she fail to produce a girl-child after already birthing many sons. Born into this fractured union, Tanwa’s life is already shadowed before it properly begins.
As a child, Tanwa is excessively pampered and spoilt by Adisa, much to Jenrola’s consternation. Hanson is shrewd in her rendering of this dynamic, showing us that too much of a good thing can become a poison. By refusing to instil accountability, respect, and discipline in Tanwa, Adisa deprives her of the very tools she will need to survive the world. He is also opposed to her receiving an education, holding the view that it is “a waste of time and resources to send a girl-child to school.” His controlling, overprotective nature allows the necessary lines between father and daughter to blur dangerously, culminating in the play’s most shocking revelation: the sin of incest. The tragedy deepens when Jenrola, upon uncovering this abomination, fatally stabs Adisa and is imprisoned. Tanwa is left fatherless, tainted by an act of abuse she did not seek, and separated from her mother. She is basically thrust into a life no child should ever have to navigate at all.
It is at this juncture that the narrator assumes a more prominent presence in the play. A female figure who surfaces periodically as the moral conscience of the narrative and its voice of reason, the narrator speaks frequently in oral rhythms of poetry and music drawn from the Yoruba tradition. Hanson’s deployment of this figure is reminiscent of the way ancient Greek dramatists employed the chorus to comment, to grieve, to warn, and to contextualise theatrical action within a broader moral and social framework. The narrator bemoans the erosion of morality in society, especially the wickedness of men, lamenting: “I fear that the beautiful ones that are not yet born may never know the meaning of sacredness and fidelity and virginity and honour.” When she states that no one is “too gone to be redeemed,” we desperately want this to be a prophecy of Tanwa’s salvation. But Hanson, with the fidelity of a realist, reminds us that stories about women like Tanwa seldom unfold beautifully or fairly.
What awaits Tanwa is an unrelenting succession of encounters with predatory men: a neglectful uncle, a lecherous schoolteacher, a psychotic paedophile. Abused, raped, and forced into child marriage, she is rendered less a person than a piece of property. Agency is denied her at every turn, and she is brought to question her own purpose and destiny. She is, as the narrator observes, a girl that “the world should cry on her behalf.”
When Tanwa does fight back against the forces that hold her captive, she does so with violence, anger, and cunning—the only tools the world has left her. By the time she is reunited with her childhood friend, Mosunmola, the contrast in their respective trajectories is impossible to ignore. A stable support system, access to education, and a strong sense of purpose have allowed Mosunmola to build a meaningful life. Tanwa, denied these foundations, finds herself seemingly unable to help even herself. The compounded weight of abuse, violence, neglect, and wilful prostitution has shaped a woman whose pride becomes an obstacle to her own redemption. She hurtles through a series of terrible decisions until she meets Dapo, the first man who is truly good to her. But just as peace appears within reach, just as a “happy ending” seems possible, the past ambushes the present in the devastating twist of Act 4, Scene 5. Hanson uses this to illustrate something painfully true: that even when help is extended, the process of change can be difficult, frustrating, and far from linear.
In the end, as the narrative circles back to the opening tableau of Moróúnmúbọ̀ and Tanwa, the full weight of the play’s title becomes luminous. In the midst of all her suffering, Tanwa was still able to receive the kindness of a friend, the reconciliatory acceptance of her long-lost mother, and the hope embodied in her daughter’s future. “You gifted me with soothing relief with your coming,” she says to Moróúnmúbọ̀, and the reader understands exactly why. The child is not merely a daughter; she is proof that something precious survived the wreckage. Tanwa’s final address to her daughter crystallises the play’s deepest conviction: “You are the new life brought forth from the residue of my life’s ash, and you are to make a story out of that. You are to rewrite a beautiful story of my life. Take my failures as your drive, having in mind that you are not allowed to make my mistakes but to replay a corrected version of my life. You are the phoenix rising from my ashes. You are my second chance.” In Moróúnmúbọ̀, Tanwa found a treasure she carried home from the ruins of everything she had endured.
The plight of womanhood has been told and retold in stories from time immemorial. And yet, from the time of Euripides’ Medea to Hanson’s Moróúnmúbọ̀, women still suffer simply for existing. The playwright is courageous in drawing attention to the persistence of child abuse, child marriage, gender-based violence, and female genital mutilation. But Hanson goes further, demonstrating that patriarchy enslaves the man as much as it does the woman: Adisa’s controlling worldview destroys not only Tanwa but himself. Ultimately, the play extends hope through the very existence of Moróúnmúbọ̀, using her to represent a newer generation of women in constant defiance of the norms, beliefs, and strictures designed solely to deny women their full humanity.
The message of Yemi Hanson’s Moróúnmúbọ̀: Beauty From Ashes is clear, poignant, and potent. If it were to be staged for theatre or adapted for television or film, its story would resound powerfully with modern-day audiences. And yet, for all its heavy themes steeped in tragedy and injustice, the play insists on redemption and hope, making it an essential text within the modern canon of transformational literature and influential storytelling.
