Book Review: "No Turning Back: Poems of Freedom" By Dibussi Tande

Dibussi Tande. No Turning Back: Poems of Freedom, 1990 – 1993. Bamenda, Cameroon: Langaa Publishers. 2007. 72 pages. [$19.95 (US), £14.95 (UK), CDN$ 21.14 (Canada) and EUR 17,94 (France/Europe), JPY 4,023 (Japan) CNY 149.835 (China)

About the Book
No Turning Back relives the tumultuous beginnings of Africa’s democratization experiment in the early 1990s. The main theme of the collection is an investment in hope and in the resilience of Africans. The poems are loud and clear in their castigation of dictatorship and its miseries. They celebrate the mass resolve and thirst for democracy by Africans for whom there is ‘No turning back’!

Editorial Reviews
"A lucid and truly memorable collection of poems. Dibussi forces us to turn back and look at the pivotal volcanic moments in Cameroon’s history between 1990- 1993... As a student activist and budding journalist during this historic period, Dibussi captures cadences of this struggle eloquently… The poems are very accessible and despite Dibussi’s admiration for the prolific playwright and poet, Bate Besong’s “Soyinka style” of poetry, Dibussi instead fits into the poetic school of another prolific poet, Niyi Osundare."
Joyce Ashuntantang – Ph.D. Department of English University of Connecticut, Greater Hartford, USA.

"If the poet is the conscience of any given nation then Dibussi is the conscience of his generation. A generation who’s coming of age coincided with Cameroon’s coming of age, as a political entity, a resultant of the so-called political wind of change, democracy strewn to its wings, which blew across the continent...In fact it is an important document chronicling, through verse, the events of an era in a given space with unmitigated passion." 
Kangsen Wakai – Poet, author of Asphalt Effect - Houston, Texas, USA

"…a subtle yet unapologetic critique of Cameroon’s chequered history of predatory governance. The poems provide succor to a people besieged first by the unrealised dreams of a political (mis)marriage and then a false promissory note on which their democratic development is written.

With poets like Dibussi, the nation is reminded that writers shall always dream at a time when politicians snore and contrary to contemporary political thought, writers and politicians can both sing songs of hope if they both use truth, social justice, endogenous development agendas and indigenous political foresight as templates for nation building."
George Ngwane - Chair, National Development Council, Cameroon

"Dibussi makes poetry look refreshingly simple but vision-packed. His language departs from the hermetic forms associated with mentors like Bate Besong and precursors such as Christopher Okigbo. Through Dibussi, the poet has elected domicile at the marketplace. He is no longer a wizened seer; remote from society. Dibussi is a skilful language resource manager: short powerful lines and a constant/unbroken rhyming pattern."
Canute Tangwa – The Post Newspaper (Cameroon)

"[No Turning Back] is truly the consecration of ceaseless efforts at raising the Cameroonian mass unconsciousness from its usual state of lethargy to one of real freedom and conscious creative self-determination. It comes at the right time when Cameroonians are at the crossroads entailing self-critique and reappraisal of our options and orientations, in order to best carve out a befitting destiny for our people..."
Ilongo Fritz – poet, novelist, author of  The Four Pillars of Time

No Turning Back can be ordered online from amazon.com or from any of the national / regional amazon branches. UK, France, Germany, Japan, China, Canada, etc. It will soon be available in bookstores in Cameroon.

Comments

[andy]

It's great to see that works published by Cameroon publishers are now available online. I am definitely looking forward to receiving my own copy of the collection in the mail in the next few days. Hopefully, this is the beginning of a literary renaissance in Anglophone Cameroon

I am happy to see the Cameroon literary community blossom but the million dollar question still remains unanswered, how do we get the Cameroonian populace to start readin poems, novels and literary books in general? the literary community in cameroon in almost inexistent because of people's reluctance to read. How do we solve this problem? I wonder.
Well done Dibussi, people like you are the silver lining in the clouds offering hope to our literary community.

[Nabi]

It makes me proud and happy where i am to tell people this a pice of work written by a Cameroonian. It gives me hope despite the many negative things people will say about that beautiful country of ours.I will like to get a copy of the pice. If i am not in any of the above mentioned places where else can i get the book?Well done Bro keep the faith one day our country will change thruogh the pen

[Mvolu]

Hi Nabi,

I am in South Africa and I order books from Amazon.com everytime. So it doesn't matter where you are. As long as you have a credit or debit card or even a bank account, you can order the book from any amazon online store. Ordering it from the one closest to you simply reduces shipping costs, nothing more.

Hope this helps!

[Nikky]

The second commentator asks how we can get Cameroonians to read? But is the issue the lack of reading habits or the absence of books to read that relate to our own reality?

I think we can answer this question right here. Of the thousands who visit this site regularly, how many have ever bought any of the books reviewed here? How many intend to buy Tande Dibussi's poetry collection which has generated this discussion?

Let's hear from the readers!!

[PETER WUTEH VAKUNTA]

Poetry can be therapeutic, allowing the poet to work through issues in his/herlife; to find answers to mind-boggling questions.It provides a vehicle of expression for diverse attitudes and fresh insights. Tande Dibussi has achieved this feat in his collection of poems No turning Back: Freedom Poems 1990-1993. He speaks in a confident tone of prophetic utterances: advising, warning, denouncing, protesting and chiding. His poetry has the twin virtues of pertinence and simplicity of diction. He has eschewed the obscurantist ineloquence and syntactico-morphologic jugglery of traditional poets. Passion, energy and incisive irony are the hallmarks of each poem in the anthology.
Peter Wuteh Vakunta
University of Wisconsin-Madison