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 ... 

    When University of Nebraska Press bought the rights of the book, I was happy because it’s important for me to be translated into English, and to make my work available for the many Africans (and people of African descent as well) who actually speak English. I started to ask myself questions when I saw which title had been chosen for the American translation of L’intérieur de la nuit. Dark Heart of the Night has nothing to do with the original title. It resembles Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and voluntarily sends wrong messages. But all right. The contract had been signed, and UN Press could use a title betraying my work without me having a say in this. They could even create that ugly cover if they thought it would help them sell the book. I know nothing about the American taste as far as covers are concerned. 

   But now, UN Press also felt entitled to add a foreword. Why not, if the aim was to help the readers know the writer and understand the novel? The problem is that the foreword is full of misleading information. Let’s say it frankly, it’s full of lies:

   1/ Cameroon does not have the worse human rights record in Africa. We have a lot of issues to face, but our country is not more violent than the USA where people are killed on a daily basis for all kinds of reasons. I don’t understand why the author of that foreword, who never bothered to contact me, made up stories like that. She is insulting a country and its people. Cameroonians will certainly not allow it.

   2/ Cameroon is not the setting of the novel which was, as I’ve said it many times, inspired by a documentary that I saw on children at war. We don’t have those in Cameroon nowadays, and if we ever had, I never heard about it.

   3/ I discovered the so called "Hashish Massacre" in the foreword. I had never heard of that, even if I knew about the armed conflicts we had in the country during the late fifties, when our people were fighting for their independence.

   4/ I did not leave Cameroon to France to flee from a violent place. I live in France because I’m both selfish and down to earth. France is still the place where you need to be when you’re an African French speaking writer. It’s what allows you to be published and correctly distributed. My fellow Cameroonians don’t know the many talented writers who live in the country and whose books are published there. They know me. And L’intérieur de la nuit was awarded the Prize of Cameroonian Excellency in 2007.

   5/ My novel is not a criticism of Negritude or Panafricanism. I’m deeply attached to Negritude whose authors have nurtured and freed my mind. If it was not for what they did, I would not be such a bold and fierce voice. They made me. Isn’t it a pity to see that the author of the foreword cannot even write Aimé Césaire’s name properly? 

   I’m a strong advocate of Panafricanism, which I view as the only way to solve some of our problems. L’intérieur de la nuit deals with fascistic views of the African identity, and this has nothing to do with Negritude or Panafricanism.

   6/ I’ve not just written another novel. Three more have actually been published, in addition with one collection of short stories and a collection of creative non fiction. The latter, entitled Soulfood Equatoriale, is my only book really talking about Cameroon. And you know what? Nobody dies in the book. If the foreword was to be informative, it would have said all this. It would also have said that L’intérieur de la nuit is part of a trilogy. Even if those novels were written so they could be read separately, they form an ensemble.

   7/ There is only one child killed in L’intérieur de la nuit, and that child is an orphan (it doesn’t make it good to kill him, but we’re talking about what is in the novel). I don’t understand why the author of the foreword talks about the women whose children are slaughtered. Can the lady actually read? Has she read? I think she must have been given an oral summary of the novel, plus two or three sentences to place here and there. This is not serious.

   Complete Review, I could also say a few things on the way you read and understood the book. I won’t. I’m glad you read it and said something about it.

   We’ve asked UN Press to withdraw the foreword. If they cannot do it because the books are already out, they’ll have to send them with a letter explaining everything I’ve just told you.

Léonora Miano

For reactions to Miano's complaint click here and here.

Click here for Léonora Miano's biography.

Comments

[viola]

With all due respect author, the many street killings in the USA is not supported by the government. You cannot sell your novel by trying to put to question the personal freedoms and liberty enjoyed by people in the USA. Trying to defend Biya's record can only earn you a basic salary in that dungeon called La republic. Stay in France, and enjoy Paris, but never try to lecture us in the USA about what death sentence means and what human rights mean.

[Wang]

Miano, i want to thank you immensely for speaking out and i hope this message has been sent to University of Nebraska press executives. This is an attempt by such unschooled idiots (as the Foreword writer) to continually misrepresent not only Africa but its writers. How could such gross and callous misconceptions of Africa and even the work of art and history find its way in the introductory words of a book? The foreword writer and possibly her publisher erroneously think that people are still enthusiastic with the falsehood told about Africa and its people.
UN Press is not serious. What stopped them from getting an African (even Cameroonian) to write the forward so that things can be put straight?

[Adamu MOBonjo]

Miano,

Having been born in 1973 in Douala, you are advised to acquaint yourself with the proper history of your country, La Republique Du Cameroun, (LRC),and you would discover that the statement made in the foreward of your book by UN has a lot of truth to it. From the massacre of the Bamilekes to the disappearance of the Dipanda 9 and several other extra judicial executions perpetrated by both the Ahidjo & Biya regimes of innocent civilians during peacefull demonstratins and otherv non-violent activities in your country and the Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia)can hardly be compared to non-government sanctioned and criminal activity in the United States of America. Please do your homework before attempting to point an accusing finger at the USA. The UN athorities know your country much better than you.

[Elio]

Is it just my browser or has Nebraska University Press taken down the book from their site? Check out the book link at the beginning of this article....

[Elio]

Sorry false alarm; book still on the site but with a different URL. the correct url is: http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Dark-Heart-of-the-Night,674190.aspx

Please Dibussi update.

[Mukefor Dennis Besong Tambe]

"It resembles Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and voluntarily sends wrong messages. But all right. The contract had been signed, and UN Press could use a title betraying my work without me having a say in this."

Are we seeing the same naivety that black Africa suffers from everyday? How in the world did she sign away the right to approve the title of her novel? For God's sake, are there no lawyers in America to have assisted her in the contract with University of Nebraska? This is the same level of naivety that has bedeviled contractual relations between astute Western peoples and the perpetually unenlightened of this world.

[Alem]

You knew all these things why did you ask them to publish your book. You would have simply taken it to your "respecter" of human rights and "secured" Cameroon to be published. Stop behaving as a child. Who cares about your lecture.

[Hilarious Obiechinna]

Words like "unenlightened" are powerful racist code words. They should be retired with other good old chap code words such as "savage" and "natives" and "tribes".

[Louis Egbe Mbua]

I am not sure what this is all about as one has not read Miano's book. However, Miano has to be careful next time with selling her copyright. Some copyright clauses hand over the entire rights to the publisher who may use the material as they see fit. If that was what Miano signed for, then I'm afraid she has very little to argue about, legally, apart from challenging the contents of the translation in public.

Furthermore, translations can be subjective: I remember Mungo Beti's Mission Termine in French being translated as Mission to Kala in English. So, Miano might have written in coded proverbial French. But the translator of her book might have translated it in real terms as he/she may have thought reflected the actual contents of the book; and Miano's intentions. Now, one important question is this: Why did Miano not draft the service of the University of Buea School of Translation to translate her book? The only problem here is that she had already sold her copyright.

[Mishe Fon]

Writing a book is no easy task. I must commend Ms Miano for her literary work. She claims this is her third Novel which means, she is no JJC in contractual negotiations. Let her simply give us a freaking break. She sold her rights to the Book Deal, pocketted her monies and was enjoying LIFE in Paris. All of a sudden, she springs back into action with a bogus claim that makes no sense except this might be a stratagem with the publishers to generate "Controversy" that could make more people "Rush to find out what,s going on and eventually Buy the Book". Who knows?. I smell a Rat. I am sorry Ms Miano but I don,t buy your Mea Culpa. kudos for your Novel though.

[kumbaboy]

Miano is making a good point but her style may be tainted by Franco-africanism, which includes the warped view that Paris is the center of civilization.

She needs to understand that in the Anglo-Saxon world, we criticize and learn from criticisms without going personal against anyone let alone a country. There is no need to criticize the USA because of one author - this approach questions her intellectual maturity.

[faison]

LOL
LOL
LOL

Everybody makes good points, and perhaps Ms Miano was foolish in leaving her interactions with her American publisher to chance and goodwill, but I admire her spunk. Never let go a good chance to make some noise and start a discussion or a quarrel. That is what intellectuals used to do, and it was a damn good tradition. Now they just want to comply and get some freaking appointment with some juicy grants, 6 figure salary and plenty of benefits. That is so mercenary. Ms Miano, I suggest that you keep writing and making people uncomfortable. First thing I suggest is to get rid of that francophone conditioning and point your intellectual guns at la France herself. Be like Ayaan Hirsi Ali. That chick is like intellectual viagra. I am sure she sells 100x as many books as you.