Dibussi Tande: Scribbles from the Den

Rising from the Depths of Despair - A Review of Enoh Meyomesse’s Prison Poetry

Reviewed by Dibussi Tande

Enoh Meyomesse. (November 2012). Poème Carcérale… Poésie du pénitencier de Kondengui. Yaounde : Les editions du Kamerun. 56 pages. [e-book version]

"Prison is a place, but it is also an idea, an idea that has engaged writers and thinkers ... because it offers a way of expressing the helplessness we all feel at some point in our lives... The idea of prison gives us a setting in which to imagine our relationship to the world when we are feeling frustrated, limited, hedged in, stymied. We can then go on to identify the forces that have landed us in this situation... and those that can release us." The Kingis Quair and Other Prison Poems 

Nearly one year after he was imprisoned in the Kondengui prison in Yaounde on charges of “aggravated theft”, Cameroonian writer and political activist Enoh Meyomesse has just published a poetry collection detailing his arrest and life behind bars. In this moving collection, Meyomesse bares it all, vividly describing his moments of hope and despair, his anger and anguish at the fate that has befallen him.

An Overview of Cameroon Prison Literature From Albert Mukong to Titus Edzoa

By Dibussi Tande

In the last six months, three former high-ranking government officials currently in jail for a variety of financial crimes have published books about their prison experience. These books also explain their own version of events that landed them in jail, while casting a critical glance at the political system in which they once played pivotal roles.

The courtyard of Kondengui Prison in Yaounde

Prominent among these unlikely authors are two former Secretary-Generals at the Presidency of the Republic, Atangana Mebara and Titus Edzoa, and Nguini Effa, the former Director General of Cameroon Petroleum Depot (SCDP).

[Video] Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Speaks at 2012 Commonwealth Lecture

Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks on Connecting Cultures at 2012 Commonwealth Lecture

 

"I knew the basic facts of Nigerian history when I first read Chinua Achebe’s novels “Things Fall Apart” and “Arrow of God,” but it was those novels that made me realize that while I may very well know the facts, I did not really know the truths. Bloodless words like ‘pacification’ and ‘amalgamation’ and ‘indirect rule’ were the facts, but the truths were in the human stories. A respected man being flogged publicly by agents of the colonial government. A priest, once resplendent in his pride and stubbornness, now reduced to sitting on a cold prison floor because he had dared to reject an offer from a British district officer. And in images such as these, I learned a great truth which the history books said nothing about: the loss of dignity."

(Full text of lecture available for download here)

Ba'bila Mutia's Play "The Road to Goma" Debuts in Cape Town

A "powerful and highly poignant" play on the Rwandan Genocide.

The Road to Goma by Ba’bila Mutia (Cameroon)
Directed by Tauriq Jenkins.
With Tshamano Sebe, Sticks Mdidimba, Mbulelo Grootboom, Roysten Stoffels, Glen Arendse, Phillip Cowie, and Ukhona Mlandu-Letsika.
Play Reading at Artscape, Cape Town, on October 29 at 2pm [Event Facebook Page]

Refugees from Rwanda in Goma, DRC, after the genocide in 1994. Photograph: Jon Jones/Sygma/Corbis

Excerpt of a review by Suzzy Bell
“The Road to Goma depicts the desolation of five characters who struggle to survive the havoc and atrocities of a people caught up in ethnic hatred and civil strife,” explains the Cameroonian playwright Babila Mutia, a sought after international storyteller who has performed his stories in Canada, Belgium, Germany, USA and South Africa. He currently lectures Creative Writing, African literature, and Research Methods in the English department at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, University of Yaoundé I in Cameroon.

Camerounian Novelist Léonora Miano Blasts Her American Publishers

Originally published on Literary Saloon

Dear the Complete Review,

   Thank you for giving me some space to express myself, and to say why the foreword added to my novel should be removed.

In sub-Saharan Africa, we’re used to be despised by the rest of the world and to be treated as mere animals. I knew, when L’intérieur de la nuit (Dark Heart of the Night) was published, that some would use the novel in order to reinforce their views on Africa and its peoples. Really, I didn’t care and still don’t care about that. What I’m interested in, is the African point of view on the topics I work on. I think we’ve spent too much time hoping for understanding and recognition from people other than ourselves. It’s time we focus on our problems and deal with them, no matter how painful it is. I’m confident in our ability to do so. I’m confident in our desire to no more take lessons in humanity from people who created and used the atomic bomb, and who still have death penalty in their country. Things would be so cool if people could just clean their front door ... 

In Memoriam: Mbella Sonne Dipoko - The Bard Who Dared To Be Different

By Dibussi Tande (Originally published in Palapala Magazine)

Mbella Sonne Dipoko, one of the leading first generation Cameroonian writers and, without doubt, the most internationally recognized Anglophone writer, died on December 5, 2009 in his hometown of Tiko. His death not only leaves a huge void on the Cameroonian literary landscape, but also marks the end of a most storied and colorful life that began 73 years ago on the banks of the River Mungo and continued through the Southern Cameroons, Nigeria, Europe and then back to the banks of the Mungo. 

Dipoko began writing very early on in his life. In 1960, he left for France at age 24, after a brief stint as an accounts clerk with the Cameroon Development Corporation and a news reporter for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation.

Palapala Magazine #8 is Here!

Issue #8 of Palapala Magazine, the Pan-African literary journal is now available online. This issue includes tributes to the late Cameroonian writer Mbella Sonne Dipoko from the likes of Isidore Okpewho, Distinguished Prof. of Literature; Francis Wache, Executive Editor of the Post newspaper; Prof. Lyombe Eko of Iowa University; poets/playwrights JK Bannavti and LLoney Monono; cartoonist Dante Besong; and blogger-poet Dibussi Tande who wrote the lead article.

New Issue of Palapala Magazine Available Online

The seventh issue of Palapala magazine, the Cameroonian/Pan-African literary Magazine is now available online. This issue features exciting essays, short stories and poems from budding and established writers from around  the continent.

In this issue's lead article, Denja Abdullahi writes about Abuja, "The City of Poets" which was extolled in verse by the late Mamman Vatsa, executed by the Babaginda regime for allegedly planning a coup:

"If the new overlords of Abuja thought they had silenced poetry after silencing Vatsa, then they were ignorant of the fact that some stowaway poets berthed in Abuja with the ship of government when it moved from Lagos with Babangida’s hurried departure…. The City of Lagos lost the seat of power to Abuja and I dare say it is on the way of losing the fountain of creativity to Abuja. Come to think of it, Abuja … is a more likely place for a poet to fall in love with. Mamman Vatsa was the first poet laureate of Abuja and many more poets have come to love Abuja like Vatsa did in his poems."

A Response to Patrice Nganang's "Literature Apartheid"

 

Click here to read my response to novelist Patrice Nganang's argument that Anglophone writers are confining themselves in a literary ghetto by promoting a "minority Anglophone literature". My response was published by the French language daily, Le Jour. The English version will be published in this month’s issue of Palapala magazine.

Biting Dogs Don't Bark (A Response to Patrice Nganang)

Kangsen Feka Wakai

In a recent essay entitled “Literature Apartheid in Cameroon”, Patrice Nganang, author of Dog Days, begins by alerting his readers to an unfolding crime.

He writes:

“An intellectual crime is being committed in our country: that of segregation against Anglophone Cameroon Literature. The crime is unfolding before the very eyes of our national Intellectuals, with our consent as stakeholders and, often spurred by our most respected, yet conniving francophone Intellectuals.”

Literature Apartheid in Cameroon

Patrice Nganang (Translated from French by Emmanuel Ndeh Avwontom) 

“Anglophone writers appear to me akin to the Albatross in Baudelaire’s poetry. The English language that they acquired from their colonial past arms them with broad wings, but the Anglophone issue clips them in their impeding flight.”

An intellectual crime is being committed in our country: that of segregation against Anglophone Cameroon Literature. The crime is unfolding before the very eyes of our national Intellectuals, with our consent as stakeholders and, often spurred by our most respected, yet conniving francophone Intellectuals. Salient in mind are Achille Mbembe’s fumble in an article he published on the Anglophone issue.  The fact, therefore, that a francophone student can complete education, beginning at Nursery school right up to a University degree – twenty years in all – without so much as touching a poetry collection, a work of prose or a drama piece published by an Anglophone writer is illustrative of the magnitude of the literary apartheid which has been used by our educational system to brainwash us.

Cameroon Literature in English – Vibrant but Invisible

By Dibussi Tande (Originally published in Palapala Magazine)

Anglophone Cameroon writing... is too little known and much underrated... consequently, much that has been written in English in Cameroon and what has been written about writing in English in Cameroon must have the character of a first encounter with the unseen, a getting to know and shedding of light on a dark spot in the literary development of Africa - Ekhard Breitinger.

In 1978, Patrick Sam-Kubam published an article in Abbia (31/33, February 1978, 205-208) in which he lamented about “The paucity of literary creativity in Anglophone Cameroon". In 1997, Juliana Nfah-Abbenyi picked up on the same theme in her seminal book on gender when she also commented about “the paucity of Cameroonian Anglophone writing”. To a certain extent, these two statements, made some two decades apart, reflected and still reflect a reality on the ground. Literature in English speaking Cameroon has not developed at the same pace as other “national” African literatures.

Palapala Magazine # 4 Now Available Online

The fourth issue of Palapala Magazine is now available online. This issue is rich with literary goodies - feature articles, poems, book reviews, short stories, interviews, etc., for literature enthusiasts and the general public. 

Contributors include Joyce Ashuntantang who tells us of the long journey to find her voice and identity, from the foot of Mt. Fako in Buea, Cameroon, to New York; poet Viola Allo who explains in a very delightful poem why she prefers to be married to her poetry than to her suitor in Cameroon ("I do not know what it means to be a Cameroonian wife”); Tolu Ogunlesi, the man form Lagos, who writes about exile in "we will set forth at midnight; Poet Barfee Gideon Wirndzerem who gives us an insight into the future of African and Cameroonian literature in an interview with Kangsen Wakai; Chenyi Labang and Dibussi Tande who both take us on a colorful and heart wrenching poetic journey to Bonamoussadi, the infamous neighborhood on the fringes of the university of Yaounde; Benna Sayyed who writes about marching bands in historical Black colleges and universities in the United States; Dipita Kwa who concludes his story on the wages of plunder, etc.

A must-read issue indeed!

Click here to read Palapala Magazine #4.

Palapala Magazine Makes a Literary Foray into the Food Crisis

After its superb second issue which focused on Cameroon literature in English, the third issue of Palapala magazine tackles the issue of food through literature. Here are some of the highlights in this issue:

• Nigerian writer Tolu Ogunlesi uses the imagination of a wandering stomach to showcase four Nigerian cities.

• Cameroonian poet and writer Viola Allo embarks on a poetic journey to a farm on Lake Awing in the Northwest province of Cameroon.

• Poet Kangsen Wakai reviews his experiences with the chicken and chicken franchises in the city of Houston.

• Poet and writer Mbella Sonne Dipoko of African Writers Series fame muses on life in exile.

Le Jour Series on Cameroon Literature in English

In the past couple of weeks, the French language daily Le Jour has been running a series on Anglophone Cameroon Literature. The series has consisted of a profile of 10 prominent writers from West of the Mungo.

Conceived by writer Patrice Nganang, the series was written by Dibussi Tande and Joyce Ashutantang. Special thanks go to Jean-Philippe Nguemeta of Le Jour who convinced the newspaper's editorial board of the value of such a series.

Find below the links to the 10 profiles.

"East of Bakassi" - A Special Issue of Palapala Magazine on Cameroonian Literature in English

In its second issue, Palapala magazine, the newly created Pan-African e-journal of culture, strikes gold with a special on Cameroonian literature in English.

This rich and diverse issue includes a toast to the late poet/playwright Bate Besong by Africa's leading poet, Niyi Osundare; Chinua Achebe's appeal to Anglophone Cameroon writers to find - and tell - the story of their marginal and marginalized condition; playwright Bole Butake's dilemma of either dealing with the hardships Cameroon or going into exile;

Hidden Treasure: Blog on Cameroon Literature in English

The Cameroonian blogosphere has grown considerably since I wrote an article in 2006 titled "Where are the Cameroonian bloggers?" Today, there are numerous online diaries, political, general interest and specialized blogs created by Cameroonians. Unfortunately, most of these very interesting blogs remain largely unknown to the general public.

One of these is the blog on Cameroon Literature in English which showcases literary works by English-speaking Cameroonian writers.

Call for Papers: International Conference on New Perspectives in Cameroon Literature?

Yaounde, 15-17 April 2009

Co-organised by the Faculty of Arts of the University of Buea, the Department of African Literature of the University of Yaoundé I and the Research Group on African & Diaspora Consciousness (GRIAD) of the University of Buea.

In collaboration with the Réseau Discours d'Afrique & LASELDI (Laboratory), Université de Franche-Comté, France.

50 Years After "Things Fall Apart": A Chat with Chinua Achebe

By Joyce Ashuntantang, PhD. (Scribbles from the Den Exclusive)
                        
“Okonkwo was well known through out the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honor to his clan by throwing Amalinze the cat”.

Dr. Ashuntantang with the legendary Chinua Achebe

With these words Achebe began Things Fall Apart and introduced the world to modern African literature.  For some of us these words have become sacred and the author, Chinua Achebe, a demigod.

Chinua Achebe: Long Way From Home

Originally published in The Guardian Newspaper

Chinua Achebe, 'the father of modern African literature', talks to Ed Pilkington about inventing a new language, his years in exile from his beloved Nigeria - and why he changed his name from Albert

By rights I should be talking to Chinua Achebe in Ogidi, his home town in Nigeria. He should be telling me about his efforts as chairman of the village council to build schools, improve the water and bring health to the people. We should be talking about whether and when the rains will come, and how the yam harvest is doing this year.

Instead, we are sitting in a bungalow on the banks of the Hudson, upriver from New York, surrounded by clapboard houses, rolling green hills and cows chewing the cud. The nearest restaurants have names such as Rose's Kitchen, Pat's Place and Hickory. As I arrive, Achebe is sitting at his desk at the window overlooking a gravel front drive.