The official cover for Uncensored Snapshots, the second chapbook by Nigerian-Hausa poet Zaynab Iliyasu Bobi. The collection will be published under Chestnut Review Chapbooks.
The chapbook sheds light on the decades-long ethnic cleansing and forced migration in Northern Nigeria (Arewa), offering what the author describes as “a fierce recall of peace.” Told through lyrical poems, it captures personal stories of loss, survival, and resistance in a region haunted by the Boko Haram insurgency and rising banditry.
The front and back covers—released today—frame the book’s urgent subject matter with bold imagery, reflecting a body of work that refuses silence. The collection stands as a powerful record in a time when “media is often silenced by censorship.”
Accompanying the reveal, early praise for the book speaks to its social weight.
The poems in this collection hold a mirror up to massacre. The strength of Uncensored Snapshots lies not only in its ability to capture the reader but to haunt them. As each page details a new horror, we are left wondering: how much taller can cruelty become? Where do you go when everywhere kills you? This chapbook is grief in capital letters, a message to a country that runs away and toward fire. And yet, Zaynab’s language is so brightly alive. Her attention to rhythm, image, and storytelling speaks to her poetic genius, creating an entry point into the speaker’s tilted sanity. You will walk away from this book transformed. Long after reading I still feel its echo: “to hear the screeching sound of my mother’s cry. i heard it & i hated it. ya Allah, i heard it & i hated it.”
— Nicole Adabunu, Iowa Writers’ Workshop ’23, Cave Canem Fellow ’24
In Uncensored Snapshots, Nigerian-Hausa poet Zaynab Iliyasu Bobi explores identity, displacement, and resilience with unflinching precision. Drawing from her background in medical laboratory science and digital artistry, she creates a multifaceted lens through which to examine loss and transformation. Particularly through the lens of Boko Haram’s impact, Zaynab
creates tangible manifestations of fragmentation that mirror exile and dislocation. Zaynab navigates different kinds of loss with profound sensitivity, charting both grief and the greater political dimensions of conflict. Uncensored Snapshots bears witness to the search for humanity in a world marked by erasure; through Zaynab’s fearless exploration of poetic form, personal
fragments metamorphose into a collective cry to be heard.
— Cara Waterfall, author of Radiant Wound (2025)
In Uncensored Snapshots, we witness firsthand poignant reflections by audacious speakers on
personal and societal struggles saddling many communities stuck in a nexus of tragic events.
Zaynab’s brilliance shines through the myriad fashion with which these poems concurrently
serve as a reminder of the similarity of our realities as a people and a plea for the rehumanization
of our existence.
— Abu Bakr Sadiq, author of Leaked Footages
Zaynab Iliyasu Bobi, a medical laboratory scientist and digital artist, brings a unique interdisciplinary lens to her writing.
Uncensored Snapshots is now available for order.
Bakare Oluwatobiloba
I write to educate, motivate and define history with literature. Just being me!
