Dibussi Tande: Scribbles from the Den

Just Published: "The Constitution and Governance in Cameroon" by Laura-Stella Enonchong

Enonchong, L.-S. E. (2021). The constitution and governance in Cameroon. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge.
About the Book
This book provides a systematic analysis of the major structural and institutional governance mechanisms in Cameroon, critically analysing the constitutional and legislative texts on Cameroon’s semi-presidential system, the electoral system, the legislature, the judiciary, the Constitutional Council and the National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms.

A Celebration of Family and Friendship: A Review of Martin Jumbam’s Beads of Memory

By Dibussi Tande

Jumbam, Martin. (2020). Beads of Memory. The Diary of an African Student in Madrid. Denver, CO: Spears Books. 98 pages. $15.00. Available from Spears Books, Amazon, African Books Collective.

Beads of Memory is the story of Leinteng Basha, a young Cameroonian studying in Madrid in the 1970s. The story starts off like any other about African students in a strange European country, looking in from outside, and trying to adapt to their new and sometimes hostile environment and its alien mores. Leinteng’s story, however, goes beyond "the usual complaints of African students abroad: loneliness, homesickness, the indifference of a heartless and racist society" to offer a humor-laced but laser-focused analysis of society.

Now Available: Bearing Witness. Poems from a Land in Turmoil

Ashuntantang, J. & Tande, D.(2020). Bearing Witness. Poems from a Land in Turmoil. Denver, CO:: Spears Books. 224 Pages. Available from Spears Books. Also available from Amazon, African Books Collective.
Bearing Witness. Poems from a Land in Turmoil is a poetic response to the devastating Anglophone Crisis/Ambazonian Conflict in Cameroon that has killed thousands of children, women and men, displaced over half a million people and left hundreds of communities in ruins. The poems in this volume capture an all-encompassing landscape marked by alienation, despair, displacement, loss, anger, trauma, as well as courage, hope, heroism, justice and resilience. These poems also engender psychic healing which has the potential of turning victims into survivors. With over 100 poems by 73 poets—seasoned and emerging, old and young, men and women—this collection is not only a guidepost of collective memory, but also the definitive literary work of this period in Cameroon’s checkered history.

Patrice Nganang's Novel, "Mount Pleasant", Now Available on Pre-Order

Publication date set for 12 April 2016.

Patrice Nganang. (April 2016). Mount Pleasant. A Novel (Translated from French by Amy Baram Reid). Farrar Straus Giroux. 384 pages. Click here to pre-order your copy on Amazon. $26.00.

A lyrical tale of transformation in colonial Africa

In Cameroon in 1931, Sara is taken from her family and brought to Mount Pleasant as a gift for Sultan Njoya, the Bamum leader cast into exile by French colonialists. Just nine years old and on the verge of becoming one of the sultan's hundreds of wives, Sara's story takes an unexpected turn when she is recognized by Bertha, the slave in charge of training Njoya's brides, as Nebu, the son she lost tragically years before. In Sara's new life as a boy she bears witness to the world of Sultan Njoya--a magical yet declining place of artistic and intellectual minds--and hears the story of the sultan's last days in the Palace of All Dreams and of the sad fate of Nebu, the greatest artist their culture had seen.

Imbolo Mbue's "Million-Dollar" Novel "Behold the Dreamers" Now Available on Preorder

Imbolo Mbue. (March 15, 2016). Behold the Dreamers: A Novel. New York: Random House, 384 pages. Formats: Ebook, Audio, Hardcover. Available on pre-order on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

It was destined to be a debut novel like no other from the moment word came out of the 2014 Frankfurt Book Fair that American publishing giant, Random House, had signed a seven-figure deal for the North American rights to The Longings of Jende Jonga, a novel by Cameroonian writer Imbolo Mbue – a record by any measure, and particularly so for an unpublished African writer unknown within the African or American literary community. 

With no previous published work and virtually no social media footprint, Internet sleuths were unable to dig up any worthwhile information about this mystery novelist described by her agent, Susan Golomb, as "part of the new generation of African writers just being discovered." Ainehi Edoro of Brittle Paper best captured the prevailing mood within the (African) literary community when she wrote that: "If you’re like me, you probably curious about her writing. What does the writing of a million-dollar debut novelist look like?"

[Just Published] The Story of a Burma Boy in Britain’s Forgotten African Army

Barnaby Philips. (September 4, 2014). Another Man’s War: The Story of a Burma Boy in Britain’s Forgotten African Army. U.K., Oneworld, 336 pages. Available on Amazon UK (sept.) and Amazon.com (Oct).

About the Book
In December 1941 the Japanese invaded Burma. For the British, the longest land campaign of the Second World War had begun. 100,000 African soldiers were taken from Britain’s colonies to fight the Japanese in the Burmese jungles. They performed heroically in one of the most brutal theatres of war, yet their contribution has been largely ignored.

Isaac Fadoyebo was one of those ‘Burma Boys’. At the age of sixteen he ran away from his Nigerian village to join the British Army. Sent to Burma, he was attacked and left for dead in the jungle by the Japanese. Sheltered by courageous local rice farmers, Isaac spent nine months in hiding before his eventual rescue. He returned to Nigeria a hero, but his story was soon forgotten. Barnaby Phillips travelled to Nigeria and Burma in search of Isaac, the family who saved his life, and the legacy of an Empire. Another Man’s War is Isaac’s story.

Click here to go to the companion website for the book.

Click here to read a review of the book.

About the Author
Barnaby Phillips is a senior correspondent for Al Jazeera English, which he joined at the time of its launch in 2006. His documentary Burma Boy won the prestigious CINE Golden Eagle Award. Previously, he was for fifteen years a correspondent for the BBC, reporting primarily from Africa. Phillips grew up in Kenya and now lives in Islington, North London. This is his first book.

[Just Published] Jail Verse: Poems from Kondengui Prison by Enoh Meyomesse

Enoh Meyomesse (2014). Jail Verse: Poems from Kondengui Prison. UK, English PEN. Paperback, 108 Pages. Price, $11.90. Available on Lulu.com.

In late 2013, English PEN launched a crowd-sourced translation of the volume of poetry Cameroonian activist and poet Enoh Meyomesse has written in prison, in order to raise funds for him and his family, and greater awareness of his case. The full collection Jail Verse: Poems from Kondengui Prison is now available to print-on-demand. As with the ebook version, all proceeds will be used to support Enoh Meyomesse and PEN's ongoing work on behalf of writers at risk around the world.

"I am a supporter of the extremely valuable work that English PEN does to support writers at risk and keep them in the public eye. It’s both an inspiring and an important organisation and I was truly thrilled to have the opportunity to get involved in a small way with their work when they asked for translators of Enoh Meyomesse’s work. I didn’t know anything of his poetry but was moved by its extreme rawness, his words a savage cry into the void, tempered by a profound spiritual hope."

Natasha Lehrer, translator, Jail Verse: Poems from Kondengui Prison

Click here for my review of the the French version of Meyomesse's poetry collection.

Click here for Meyomesse's first person narrative of life at the Kondengui prison.

Details of Meyomesse's case are available on his Facebook page.

[Just Published] Incisive Journalism in Cameroon: The Best of "Cameroon Report" (1978-1986)

Sam-Nuvala Fonkem (Editor). December 2013. Incisive Journalism in Cameroon: The Best of "Cameroon Report" (1978-1986). Langaa, Bamenda, 276 pages. [Paperback]. Available on Amazon.com.


About the book:

Working for Cameroon state-owned Radio in the 1970s and '80s meant toeing the official line and learning not to sing out of tune. While the rather scanty private press that existed at the time was subject to prior censorship, a different kind of censorship—self-censorship—prevailed at the Radio where topics for commentaries were vetted by the Minister of Information or his delegate.

But for Anglophones working in a predominantly francophone environment, once topics were approved, the authorities could not be sure which direction commentaries were going to take as the journalists applied the tactics of 'bite and blow', sometimes giving full expression of their Anglo-Saxon spirit of debate and critical analysis as evidenced in this selection of commentaries from the Sunday morning commentary programme, "Cameroon Report" (now "Cameroon Calling") of the late 1970's up till 1986.

It is a showcase of the irrepressible seed of freedom of expression that Anglophone journalists were imbued with and demonstrated at a time when subjects related to coups d'état, human rights and governance were considered taboo. It was and shall remain the indelible input of the Anglophone character that has had a positive influence on Cameroon's media landscape.

Chinua Achebe Publishes Eagerly Anticipated Biafra Memoir

Achebe, Chinua. 2012. There was a country: a personal history of Biafra. New York: Penguin Press.

Chinua Achebe's eagerly anticipated memoirs of the Biafran war went on sale in the UK on September 26, 2012. The US edition goes on sale on October 11, 2012.


Synopsis
Chinua Achebe, the author of Things Fall Apart, is a writer whose moral courage and storytelling gifts have left an enduring stamp on world literature. There Was a Country is his long-awaited account of coming of age during the defining experience of his life: the Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War of 1967-1970. It became infamous around the world for its impact on the Biafrans, who were starved to death by the Nigerian government in one of the twentieth century's greatest humanitarian disasters.

Major Publication on the Media in Africa Launched in Cape Town

Guy Berger (ed). MEDIA IN AFRICA: Twenty years after the Windhoek Declaration on press freedom. Media Institute of Southern Africa, 2011, 190 pages.

I am thrilled to be a contributor to one of the most comprehensive publications in the last decade on the state of the media in Africa, which was launched yesterday in Cape Town at the start of the Pan African Conference on Access to Information and the Highway Africa 15th conference.

Overview

 What has been the state-of-play for African media in  the 20 years since the historic Windhoek Declaration of 1991 which gave rise to World Press Freedom Day every 3 May? And what can be expected over the next decade? More than 70 commentators illuminate the trajectory in a range of contributions in this book - covering the issues of media freedom, pluralism, independence and access to information.

Just (Re)Published: N.N Mbile's Memoir on Politics in (Southern) Cameroon(s)

N.N. Mbile. Cameroon Political Story: Memories of an Authentic Eye Witness | Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon | 2011 | 310 pages. Available from Amazon.com

In a 2007 article titled "Individual Memory and Collective Amnesia: Where are the Political Memoirs?", I lamented about "a long list of prominent Cameroonians on both sides of the Mungo who never bothered to write their memoirs thereby depriving future generations of Cameroonians of the right to know and understand their past."

Commenting specifically about the British Southern Cameroons, I pointed out that "of the original 13 Southern Cameroons representatives who sat in Nigeria’s Eastern House of Assembly in Enugu in 1952 (the Cameroon bloc), only one, Nerius Namaso Mbile, wrote his memoirs which were published in 1999."

Just Published! "Tiko" - a Collection of Short Stories by Shandie Avwontom

Shandie Shing Avwontom.TIKO. AuthorHouse, June 20, 2011. 152 pages. Available on Amazon.com and other major online booksellers.

TIKO is a collection of four crisp and fast-pace short stories.

In a country (Cameroon) where one story is usually told in several languages at the same time, to an audience which speaks no less than four languages on a daily basis (usually English, French, Pidgin, and a local dialect) the author felt challenged by the simplicity and straighforward beauty in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Strange Maladies. He set out to express the beauty of his own urban African stories as they are told: a gripping flow of numerous languages and expressions harmonised into English that keeps the reader going and going.

Just Published: The Secrets of an Aborted Decolonisation by Carlson Anyangwe

Carlson Anyangwe. The Secrets of an Aborted Decolonisation: The Declassified British Secret Files on the Southern Cameroons. | 806 pages | 234 x 156 mm | B/W Illustrations | 2010 | Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon | Paperback

From book cover
A remarkable feature of the collapse of the British Empire is that the British departed from almost every single one of their colonial territories invariably leaving behind a messy situation and an agenda of serious problems that in most cases still haunt those territories to this day. One such territory is the Southern British Cameroons. There, the British Government took the official view that the territory and its people were “expendable”. It opposed, for selfish economic reasons, sovereign statehood for the territory, in clear violation of the UN Charter and the norm of self-determination. It transferred the Southern Cameroons to a new colonial overlord and hurriedly left the territory. The British Government’s bad faith, duplicity, deception, wheeling and dealing, and betrayal of the people of the Southern Cameroons is incredible and defies good sense. Ample evidence of this is provided by the declassified documents in this book.

Rosemary Ekosso's "House of Falling Women" Nominated for the Aidoo-Snyder Prize

House of Falling Women, the debut novel of Cameroonian writer Rosemary Ekosso has been nominated for the Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize.

Other nominees include Kenyan novelist Wambui Githiora for her book Wanjira; Valerie Tagwira of Zimbabwe for The Uncertainty of Hope; Amma Darko of Ghana for Not Without Flowers; Kopano Matlwa of South Africa for Coconut.

The Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize is awarded annually by the Women’s Caucus of the African Studies Association (ASA) for an outstanding book published by a woman that prioritizes African women’s experiences. Named in honor of Ama Ata Aidoo, the celebrated Ghanaian novelist and short-story writer, and Margaret Snyder, the founding Director of UNIFEM, this award will be given during the 2010 ASA annual meetings in San Francisco at the Women’s Caucus Annual Lecture and Luncheon. Every fifth year the prize is given for a creative work, this year the Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize will be awarded for a novel.

Fourth Edition of Acclaimed Historical Dictionary of Cameroon Now Available

DeLancey, Mark D., Rebecca Neh Mbuh, and Mark DeLancey. Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon (4th Edition). Historical Dictionaries of Africa, no. 113. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 2010. 530 pages.  

Book Flyer from Scarecrow Press
Cameroon is a country endowed with a variety of climates and agricultural environments, numerous minerals, substantial forests, and a dynamic population. It is a country that should be a leader of Africa. Instead, we find a country almost paralyzed by corruption and poor management, a country with a low life expectancy and serious health problems, and a country from which the most talented and highly educated members of the population are emigrating in large numbers. Although Cameroon has made economic progress since independence, it has not been able to change the dependent nature of its economy. The economic situation combined with the dismal record of its political history, indicate that prospects for political stability, justice, and prosperity are dimmer than they have been for most of the country's independent existence.

Books by Dibussi Tande

Available on Amazon.com

Just Published: "Betrayal of Too Trusting a People" by Carlson Anyangwe

Carlson Anyangwe. Betrayal of Too Trusting a People: The UN, the UK and the Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons. Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon | Paperback | 260 pages | 2009

There is a growing body of literature on what was originally envisioned as a free political association of the French and British Cameroons and its dramatic effects on the 'British Cameroons' community. Anyangwe's new book is an attempt to write the history of the Southern Cameroons from a legal perspective. This authoritative work describes in great detail the story of La Republique du Cameroun's alleged annexation and colonization of the Southern Cameroons following the achievement of its independence, while highlighting the seeming complicity of the United Nations and the British Trusteeship Authority. In the process, Anyangwe unravels a number of myths created by the main actors to justify this injustice and, in the end, makes useful suggestions to reverse the situation and to restore statehood to the Southern Cameroons. The book is rich in archival research and informed by a global perspective. It convincingly shows the uniqueness of the Southern Cameroons case.

Joyce Ashuntantang: Foreign Publishers Determine the Nature of our Stories (Interview)

Interviewed by Dibussi Tande

“As long as foreign publishers remain the mid-wives of our stories, they will keep determining the nature of these stories.” Joyce Ashuntantang

Early this year, Joyce Ashuntantang published a book titled Landscaping Postcoloniality: The Dissemination of Anglophone Cameroon Literature which Bernth Lindfors describes as the "most comprehensive study of Anglophone Cameroon literature that has been published to date". In the book, Dr. Ashuntantang, who teaches literature at Hillyer College, University of Hartford, USA, demonstrates that contrary to widespread belief, literature from the English-speaking part of Cameroon is alive and well, in spite of a host of obstacles that have slowed its development and reduced its international visibility. In this interview, Dr. Ashuntantang discusses her ground-breaking book and the state of Anglophone Cameroon literature with Dibussi Tande. Excerpts:

Now Available! Scribbles from the Den

Dibussi Tande: Scribbles from the Den: Essays on Politics and Collective Memory in Cameroon. Langaa publishers. 232 pages. Now available from African Books Collective, Oxford (£19.95), Michigan State University Press, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble ($29.95).

(Press Release) New Anthology to Promote Anglophone Cameroonian Writing

New writing from Anglophone authors in Cameroon is featured in an anthology to be released in July. 
 
The Spirit Machine and other new short stories from Cameroon is the first in a new series of books aiming to promote emerging Anglophone writers unknown in the West but “whose writing tells wonderful new stories in wonderful new ways”.
 
Edited and introduced by Dr Emma Dawson, of Keele University in Staffordshire, UK, The Spirit Machine will be published on July 1 by Critical, Cultural and Communications Press in the World Englishes Literature Fiction series.