Francis Nyamnjoh

(Podcast) Francis Nyamnjoh Talks to Herman Wasserman about Tabloid Journalism in South Africa

Click here to listen to Podcast.

Mobile Phones: The New Talking Drums of Everyday Africa? (Book Review)

Originally published here

Bruijn, M. ., Nyamnjoh, F. B., & Brinkman, I. (2009). Mobile phones: The new talking drums of everyday Africa. Bamenda, Cameroon: Langaa.

I have been reading up on mobile phone use in developing countries recently for a couple of papers. One of the few books entirely devoted to the issue is “Mobile Phones: The New Talking Drums of Everyday Africa”, edited by Mirjam de Bruijn, Francis Nyamnjoh and Inge Brinkman from the African Studies Centre in Leiden and published in 2009 in cooperation with Cameroon’s Langaa group. #The book takes an anthropological and historical perspective on the role of mobile telephony in a wide range of (sub-Saharan) African societies.

 

Profess Democracy but Implement Autocracy: Politics in Nyamnjoh's Married But Available

By George Esunge Fominyen

Is Francis Nyamnjoh’s *Married But Available simply an account of the experiences of Lily Loveless, a Muzugulander (western) researcher, who travels to Mimboland (Cameroon/Africa) to study the relationship between sexuality and power? Or is it about the telenovela-styled sneak peek into the lives of couples by Britney, Lily’s young research assistant? Isn’t it a, rather, witty stab at African leadership, democracy and the role of the media in society?

(Video) Talk by Prof. Nyamnjoh about CODESRIA

In his address, Francis Nyamnjoh introduces the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) as a model for open access development and implementation. CODESRIA is a multi-disciplinary, pan-African organization based in Senegal, “working towards bringing back the missing African voice” to the global publishing industry.

Francis Nyamnjoh – Scholarly Communication in Africa: Project Scoping Workshop from Creative R&D on Vimeo.

Africa’s Media: Between Professional Ethics and Cultural Belonging

Nyamnjoh, F. B. (2010). Africa's media: Between professional ethics and cultural belonging. Windhoek: Fesmedia Africa, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.

In 2005 I published Africa’s Media: Democracy and the Politics of Belonging. One of the main findings of that study was that the media have assumed a partisan, highly politicised, militant role in Africa. They have done so by dividing citizens into the righteous and the wicked, depending on their party-political leanings, ideologies, regional, cultural or ethnic belonging. By considering the Cameroonian experience, the book sought to understand how scapegoatism, partisanship, and regional and ethnic tendencies in the media have affected their liberal democratic responsibility to act as honest, fair and neutral mediators – accessible to all and sundry. It did this by looking at polarisation in the press and at how the media have shaped and
been shaped by the politics of belonging since the early 1990s.

Re-thinking Communication Research and Development in Africa

Keynote address for 4th IDIA Conference 2010, UCT, Cape Town South Africa

Introduction

Development for Africa is fraught with a multiplicity of exogenously generated ideas, models and research paradigms, all with the purported goal of ‘alleviating’ or bringing about ‘the end of poverty … in our lifetime’ (cf. Sachs 2005). This discourse, which like fashion, goes round in circles, is carried on mainly by ‘development’ agents and ‘experts’ (mainly social and pseudo-social scientists moonlighting through consultancies) and who often limit the question of development to the problematic of achieving growth or ‘the end of poverty’ within the context of neo-liberal economic principles.

Racism, Ethnicity and the Media in Africa: Reflections Inspired by Studies of Xenophobia in Cameroon and South Africa

Francis B. Nyamnjoh (Originally published in Africa Spectrum)

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the extent to which the media and belonging in Africa are torn between competing and often conflicting claims of bounded and flexible ideas of culture and identity. It draws on studies of xenophobia in Cameroon and South Africa, inspired by the resilience of the politicization of culture and identity, to discuss the hierarchies and inequalities that underpin political, economic and social citizenship in Africa and the world over, and the role of the media in the production, enforcement and contestation of these hierarchies and inequalities. In any country with liberal democratic aspirations or pretensions, the media are expected to promote national citizenship and its emphasis on large-scale, assimilationist and territorially bounded belonging, while turning a blind eye to those who fall through the cracks as a result of racism and/or ethnicity. Little wonder that such an exclusionary articulation of citizenship is facing formidable challenges from its inherent contradictions and closures, and from an upsurge in the politics of recognition and representation by small-scale communities claiming autochthony at a historical juncture where the rhetoric espouses flexible mobility, postmodern flux and discontinuity.

Click here to download the full text in PDF format.

Book Review: The social life of 'maids'

Originally published on Pambazuka News

Efua Prah reviews Francis Nyamnjoh's 'Intimate Strangers', a book in which 'we learn and unlearn a lot about human beings and the solidarities they forge and deny one another'.

Through Francis Nyamnjoh’s Immaculate of Mimboland, a foreigner in Botswana, we learn and unlearn a lot about human beings and the solidarities they forge and deny one another.

I think my sense of what was normal and accepted behaviour really got tested as I read the stories Immaculate transcribed for Dr Winter-Bottom Nanny. My surprised reaction really is exemplary of how easy it is to normalise certain ways of being (like what our expectations are and what we measure as acceptable) and categorise relationships according to these definitions.

A Review of Two Books by Francis Nyamnjoh

BARBARA HARLOW (Race & Class, Vol. 51, No. 3, 99-101, 2010)

The Travail of Dieudonné By FRANCIS B. NYAMNJOH (Nairobi, East African Educational Publishers,2008), 164 pp.

Mobile Phones: the new talking drums of everyday Africa By MIRJAM DE BRUIJN, FRANCIS NYAMNJOH and INGE BRINKMAN, eds (Leiden, African Studies Centre/Bamenda, Cameroon, Langaa Research and Publishing, 2009), 173 pp.

Chopngomna is the only one of the habitués gathered in the Grand Canari bar who has a mobile phone; in fact, he ‘owned two mobile phones – the latest cutest and most expensive Nokia and Samsung in town; phones endowed with the fanciest ring tones that made him a popular spectacle around Nyamandem’. The group assembled that day, a day that extended well into evening, however, was more intent on another kind of communication, Dieudonné’s rambling account of his ‘travail’ – travail in the sense of ordeal, but also in the French sense of work or job, since The Travail of Dieudonné, written in English, is set in Mimboland/Cameroon, ruled by President Longstay, where French is but one of the colonial languages, and Dieudonné’s storytelling is also inflected dramatically with local pidgin and indigenous aphorisms and proverbs, along with frequent Insha ‘Allah’s. Nor is Dieudonné interested in a mobile phone of his own, no matter how cute or sexy or even fancy the ringtone, although one of the local beer companies, his favourite, is sponsoring ‘winning caps’ that could, if he were lucky, land him such an otherwise prized possession.

The ethics of research on human subjects in Africa

Apollo Rwomire and Francis B. Nyamnjoh (2007) Challenges and Responsibilities of Social Research in Africa: Ethical Issues.Addis Ababa, The Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA), 212 pages, and paperback, P120, ISBN 99912-572-9-2 (has an index of key names, but not a subject index). Available at BooksBotswana and Exclusive Books.

Reviewed by SHERIDAN GRISWOLD (Originally published in Mmegi Online)

Challenges and Responsibilities of Social Research in Africa: Ethical Issues is a collection of 21 essays that should be of interest to a variety of people, including researchers and consumers of research.

Its editors are well known in Botswana. Apollo Rwomire, a Ugandan, has taught in the Department of Social Work at the University of Botswana (UB) since 1993. His recent books include Social Problems in Africa (2001) and Human Impact on Environment and Sustainable Development in Africa (2003).

Francis B Nyamnjoh, a Cameroonian, is an anthropologist and sociologist who has written five works of fiction including The Disillusioned African (1995) and The Travails of Dieudonne (2008). His academic books span topics as diverse as sexuality, xenophobia, democracy, the media and Magical Interpretations, Material Realities (2001).

Review of Francis Nyamnjoh's 'Married but Available'

Vicensia Shule gives an appreciative review of Francis Nyamnjoh's 'Married but Available'.

The title of Francis Nyamnjoh’s 'Married but Available' (MBA) is both inviting and intriguing. Being MBA as opposed to having an MBA! Reading the cover page, it was evident to me that the author had set out to refute, or at least interrogate, the existing practice of people being simultaneously married and available for relationships with persons other their married partners. This is a practice that can be traced to almost all societies of the world. Nyamnjoh sheds light on this phenomenon not only in relation to the traditions of the fictional Mimboland in which the novel is set, but more on the global motives behind the possibility of marriage and availability. The most fascinating aspect of Mimboland is its unique ‘products’, such as Mimbo Wonder beer, Air Mimbo and the University of Mimbo, which surface throughout the novel. 

Book Review: Francis B. Nyamnjoh, (2008). Souls Forgotten.

By Tanja Estella Bosch (Originally published on TEBlog)

This satirical portrayal of the fictional West African 'Mimboland’ begins with the anguished reflections of a rather stereotypical Emmanuel, experiencing an emotional breakdown of sorts after failing university exams. Acutely aware of the unrealistic expectations of his family and the rural villagers who pin all their hopes on his return, Emmanuel simultaneously navigates his way through a shaky relationship and the dirty, dangerous yet glamorous streets of the fast city.

Chose promise, chose dûe : Note de Lecture Souls Forgotten de Francis B. Nyamnjoh

Par Nathalie Gabiam

D’abord je tiens à vous remercier pour l’honneur que vous m’avez fait par la dédicace de ce premier volume de SOULS FORGOTTEN. Comme je vous l’ai dit dans notre discussion, à mon avis, l’histoire de ce roman ne ressemble pas du tout à la trame de vos autres romans que j’ai pu lire. Il me paraît plus profond car le thème étudié porte à réfléchir sur le monde visible et le monde invisible. Sur la relation entre nos pères et nos ancêtres défunts et les préoccupations des villageois par rapport aux préoccupations des citadins. Le cadre est tellement bien décrit que parfois on se retrouve là-dedans ; les quartiers pauvres des villes avec leur misère et le manque d’infrastructures le plus élémentaire (pas d’eau courante, pas de toilettes), l’insalubrité et les gens qui se battent pour survivre.

Note de lecture sur "Marrried But Available" de Francis B. Nyamnjoh

Par Ngo Nlend Nadeige Laure

C’est une image véritablement scabreuse que celle du Mimboland, ou peut être devrait on dire : Libidoland – Bacchus conduisant fatalement à Vénus - que celle projetée dans ce qui tient plus d’un traité sur la sociologie sexuelle que d’une oeuvre de fiction, et dont l’intitulé seule en dit long sur la nature épicée du contenu. Married But Available, pour citer cette dernière sortie littéraire de Francis B. Nyamnjoh, n’a pas failli à la tradition du tragi- comique qui caractérise l’univers de l’auteur. Un univers où l’humour décapant et le dramatique s’allient et se combinent avec une régularité et une aisance difficilement égalables, pour servir à un public chaque fois plus conquis, le divertissant menu que constitue ce qui désormais est connu comme la spécialité du chef, à savoir, les tribulations du Mimboland.

A journey into dejection or the denunciation of resignation: A review of Francis Nyamnjoh’s Souls Forgotten

Souls Forgotten (355 pages; Langaa research and Publishing CIG, 2008)

 Reviewed by George Esunge Fominyen

It took Emmanuel Kwanga four years after dropping out of university to take control of his life and decide to set up an NGO to assist his community reeling in neglect, instead of griping about the fate of the rich and poor, the corrupt and the defenceless in his country Mimboland. Francis Nyamnjoh in Souls Forgotten (2008) used the subtlety of prose to tell Cameroonians in 355 pages what the U.S Ambassdor Janet Garvey said to them via a speech to the American Chamber of Commerce in Douala in June 2009 : it is time to take ownership of their destiny, their government, their community.

Review of Francis Nyamnjoh’s "A Nose for Money" and "The Travail of Dieudonne"

 by Corinne Knowles, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa

Francis Nyamnjoh is a versatile author, switching with apparent ease between scholarly and fictional writing. Having been entertained by his insightful teaching, I anticipated being taught by the entertaining Nose for Money. The novel traces the life journey of Prospere, a guileless Mimbolander who engages the reader from the start with the innocence of his internal life in the face of poverty, adversity and the seduction of money. The novel depicts the schizophrenia of an Africa aspiring to be rich, pretending to care about its people, corruptible by power and socialised into binary roles for men and women.

The Woes of a People Enslaved by Alcohol: A Review of Francis Nyamnjoh’s "The Travail of Dieudonné"

By George Esunge Fominyen

When a social science researcher takes to fictional literature, it is hard to draw the line between reality and imagination. It is the case with Cameroon’s Francis Nyamnjoh; a sound academic  who knows how to tell a story simply and vividly. Apart from deliberate exaggerations by the author, any Cameroonian who has lived in the country for the past quarter of a century reading The Travail of Dieudonné, could easily find their space or that of a person they know in the colourful characters in the novel’s setting of Mimboland.

What’s in a name? Mimbo in Cameroonian pidgin means a drink (from palm wine to champagne). So doped of this potent nectar, are the characters of The Travail of Dieudonné that, they readily accept their unfortunate fate. Theirs is a world of misery in which insultingly rich and corrupt officials reap of an undemocratic government in which poor governance thrives, while the masses abandon themselves to sexual perversity and self-pity with the help of alcohol. In many ways, it is Cameroon seen through a glass of beer and Cameroonians locked inside a bottle of lager.

THE TRAVAIL OF DIEUDONNE - Note de lecture Marie Ndiaye

The Travail of Dieudonné pourrait passer pour le procès de Muzunguland et des Muzungulanders. La vie de Dieudonné sert de trame à cette histoire qui couvre plus d’une soixantaine d’années dans un coin d’Afrique (Warzone) riche de son sol mais appauvri par les choix économiques du colonisateur et par la convoitise des chefs de guerre et des puissances étrangères qui financent la guerre qui le ravage.

Muzunguland a tout pris à Dieudonné : sa terre natale, son père, sa mère et ses sœurs, sa religion, son identité, son nom, sa fierté, sa masculinité, et enfin son épouse, Tsanga. Il se décrit lui-même comme suit : «  je ne suis rien », « nous sommes ce qu’ils veulent que nous soyons ».

Now Available: Mobile Phones: The New Talking Drums of Everyday Africa

Mirjam de Bruijn, Francis Nyamnjoh and Inge Brinkman (eds.). The New Talking Drums of Everyday Africa. Langaa Publishers / ASC, 2009. Available on amazon.com and ABC Books.

We cannot imagine life now without a mobile phone’ is a frequent comment when Africans are asked about mobile phones. They have become part and parcel of the communication landscape in many urban and rural areas of Africa and the growth of mobile telephony is amazing: from 1 in 50 people being users in 2000 to 1 in 3 in 2008. Such growth is impressive but it does not even begin to tell us about the many ways in which mobile phones are being appropriated by Africans and how they are transforming or are being transformed by society in Africa.

Extending the Theoretical Cloth to Make Room for African Experience: An Interview with Francis Nyamnjoh

Herman Wasserman, University of Sheffield (Originally published in Journalism Studies, 10:2, 281 – 293)

Francis Beng Nyamnjoh was born in Lakabum-Bum, Cameroon, and was educated in Yaounde and Leicester, where he obtained his PhD on a thesis titled Broadcasting for Nation-building in Cameroon: Development and Constraints, supervised by the late James Halloran at the famous Centre for Mass Communication Research.  Currently Head of Publications at the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) in Dakar, Senegal, his research centres around questions of citizenship, globalization and the media and their intersections in Africa. His training in anthropology and sociology has inclined him to view media from the way it is used by people in their everyday lives, among conditions that often differ starkly from those in the Global North. Nyamnjoh’s anthropological interest in the everyday not only affords him a preference for and keen insight into popular forms of communication in Africa like cartooning, radio and gossip – or ‘radio trottoir’ – but also adds a vividness and sparkle to his writing, punctuated with perceptive observations and sparkling with humour. Alongside his academic publications, Nyamnjoh has also published several novels set in the fictional “Mimboland”, a mirror of his native Cameroon.

A Review of The Travail of Dieudonne by Francis B. Nyamnjoh

Reviewed by Sam-Nuvala Fonkem

The Travails of Dieudonne is Nyamnjoh's 5th novel, a remarkable achievement for an academic with an impressive collection of scholarly publications who has demonstrated versatility in his ability to stride across the literary world and the intelligentsia.

The novel tells the story of Dieudonne, a houseboy who works for a white couple from Munzunguland Monsieur and Madamme Toubaby, who are resident in Beverly Hills, an exclusive neighbourhood of Nyamandem where, it was rumoured, the stolen wealth that had failed to make its way out of the country tended to be buried in extravagant luxuries that were simply out of this world.

Researching Sexuality in Africa (A Review of Francis Nyamnjoh’s Married But Available)

By Omobolaji Olarinmoye (originally published in Pambazuka)

The book Married But Available is a unique one, unique in the sense that it is first an exposé – a mischievous and daring one for that matter – on the issue of sexuality (in Africa and the discourse guiding research on the issue) and more importantly (at least for the reviewer) a critique of the process of data collection for research in the social sciences. In other words, through an examination of sexuality in Mimboland (a fictional country based on the author’s home country of Cameroon, but which could easily represent any African country), the book addresses the issue of how to or not to undertake social research and examines the consequences, personal and public, of sloppy data collection.

Note de lecture sur : "The travail of Dieudonné" de Francis B. Nyamnjoh

Par Ngo Nlend Nadeige Laure

Francis B. Nyamnjoh. The Travail of Dieudonné. E.A.E.P. Nairobi, Kenya, 2008.

Dieu a donné dites vous ? Quelle ironie d’appeler d’un nom aussi faste un personnage dont l’existence dès le départ,  n’a été jonchée que d’amères déceptions et de cruelles injustices et dont les motifs de réjouissance ne proviennent que du faux sentiment  d’exaltation  que procure un esprit embrumé par l’alcool.  

View From Mimboland - An Interview with Francis Nyamnjoh

Academic and novelist Francis Nyamnjoh turns his native Cameroon into the fictional Mimboland to explore how tradition and reality clash in today's Africa. A Worlds Apart interview.

Francis Nyamnjoh_Worlds Apart - Francis Nyamnjoh

Barack Obama - For Many Abroad, an Ideal Renewed

Culled from The New York Times

Francis Nyamnjoh, a Cameroonian novelist and social scientist, said he saw Mr. Obama less as a black man than “as a successful negotiator of identity margins.”

His ability to inhabit so many categories mirrors the African experience. Mr. Nyamnjoh said that for America to choose as its citizen in chief such a skillful straddler of global identities could not help but transform the nation’s image, making it once again the screen upon which the hopes and ambitions of the world are projected.

Click here for the rest of the article.

‘It is difficult to advise a leader who is always right’

An excerpt from Francis B. Nyamnjoh’s Married But Available

It is late into the night. Bobinga Iroko is unable to sleep. He is working on the editorial for the next issue of The Talking Drum. He has deliberately refused to carry the story on homosexuality. His priority remains the strike at the University of Mimbo, which, curiously, hasn’t attracted much coverage from the rest of the national press concentrated in Nyamandem and Sawang. He and The Talking Drum, the formidable odds against them notwithstanding, are determined to crusade along like a lone ranger, until victory day. They believe the sun must not be allowed to set on a good idea.

É difícil aconselhar um líder que está sempre certo

Um excerto do romance Married but available

Francis B. Nyamnjoh (2008-10-26) 

É tarde da noite. Bobinga Iroko é incapaz de dormir. Ele está trabalhando no editorial para o próxima edição de O tambor falante. Ele, deliberadamente, recusou a lançar a história sobre homossexualidade. Sua prioridade ainda é a greve na Universidade de Mimbo, a qual, curiosamente, não atraiu muita cobertura do resto da imprensa nacional concentrada em Nyamandem e Sawang. Ele e O tambor falante, apesar dos obstáculos formidáveis que se punham diante si, estão determinados a empreender uma cruzada tal como um vaqueiro solitário, até o dia da vitória. Eles acreditam que o pôr do sol não deve ofuscar uma boa idéia.

Serie: Quelques auteurs camerounais anglophones - Francis Nyamjoh

Écrit par Dibussi Tande and Joyce Ashutantang  (Le Jour)

Francis Nyamjoh est surtout connu comme chercheur, lui qui a publié de manière extensive sur la globalisation, la citoyenneté, les medias, la politique identitaire en Afrique, et a enseigné la sociologie, l’anthropologie et la communication dans des universités au Cameroun, au Botswana et en Afrique du sud.

  

Son livre Africa’s Media : Democracy and the Politics of Belonging (2005) est l’un des ouvrages les plus cités sur la question des medias, de l’ethnicité et de la démocratisation au Cameroun.

A Review of Francis Nyamnjoh's "The Travail of Dieudonne"

Originally published in The Standard (Kenya)

Title: The Travail of Dieudonne
Author: Francis B. Nyamnjoh
Publisher: East African Educational Publishers (Peak Library)
Year of Publication: 2008
Reviewer: Tom Odhiambo

The Travail of Dieudonne is a modern version of Meja Mwangi’s Going Down River Road.

The main narrative in the novel is a biography of Dieudonne, a houseboy (that colonial term that refuses to go away) to an expatriate white couple teaching at a university in Mimboland.

Eradicating ‘Cultural Poverty’

By Francis Nyamnjoh (Originally published on The Broker)

On reading through the IOB evaluation report I’m particularly struck by the emphasis on the sectoral approach to aid. It is as if normal life is lived in disconnected segments, and as though the successes scored in one sector cannot be cancelled out by the failure to address the needs in other sectors. Of course, it could always be argued that no single donor has resources enough to intervene simultaneously across a broad spectrum of sectors. But even so, this begs the question of what informs the choice of sectors and, even more important, what quantity and quality of research should inform the choice of sectors in order to guarantee successful outcomes.

“Knitting Our Social Worries in One Story”: A Review of Francis B.Nyamnjoh’s Souls Forgotten

By Nixon K. Takor (Mphil Research Student), ASC- University of Leiden

Is Nyamnjoh a sociologist or novelist? This enquiry among others has lingered in the minds of many who happen to stumble on any of his works. Track him along any genre of scholarship, leave him with any academic trade mark, he in my opinion is just a social pedagogue who has the uphill task to film society as it is, query it to expose the invisible, at times visible but unspeakable and unthinkable facets of human society. Nyamnjoh does this in different ways depending on where his imagination intuits him. He has a piquant parcel of words which he situates in context to attract the widest audience in the social environment he sets out to examine. In the novel Souls Forgotten, Nyamnjoh’s approach is ‘infotainment’ where he informs his audience about the social issues inherent in a mythic state society called Mimboland, and at the same time tries to capture and sustain their attention through literary entertainment .

Book Launch in London - The 1961 Cameroon Plebiscite - Choice or Betrayal

Thursday 18th September 2008 from 6-8 pm at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

A Concoction of Paradoxes – A Review of "The Disillusioned African" by Francis B. Nyamnjoh

By Kangsen Feka Wakai (Originally published in Palapala Magazine)

Francis B. Nyamnjoh. The Disillusioned African. Langaa Publishers, 2007. 264 pages

Meet Charles, able-bodied African male of decent character with Herculean aspirations. Born sometime before independence swept through the continent; sometime before its echoing chants became the refrain of daily discourse; he is witness to the political and economic sameness of his world as it assumes different names but holds on to an ancient personality—tyranny.

An aspiring philosopher with the eye of an amateur anthropologist; Charles is a man of his time with a worldview molded by a ceaseless current of historical, socio-economic and political forces. It is the collision of these forces that compel him early on in his correspondence to make this confession:

Book Review - Nyamnjoh's "Mind Searching" and "A Nose for Money"

Reviewed by Roos Keja (Originally published in Pambazuka News)

Recently, the Langaa Research and Publishing Common Initiative Group in Bamenda has republished Francis Nyamnjoh's first novel Mind Searching (2007 [1991]). After having read A Nose for Money (2006) which came with lightning and thunder, Mind Searching entered my mind as a thought provoking but gentle breath of air. The central theme in the two novels is the perverse functioning of the political system and its effects on the man in the street, in Mind Searching explicitly set in Cameroon, in A Nose For Money in the fictional Mimboland, a mirror of Nyamnjoh's beloved and reviled Cameroon.

Book Review: Souls Forgotten by Francis B. Nyamnjoh.

By Alice Macdonald (Originally published in Pambazuka News)

Langaa Publishers. Bamenda, Cameroon. 2008. [ISBN: 9789956558124, 360 pages, Price: £14.95]

The prolific Cameroonian writer and academic Francis Nyamnjoh continues to delight his readers with the publication of his latest novel Souls Forgotten. Souls Forgotten is a bitter indictment of the political and social situation of many African countries. The novel is set in the fictional land of ‘Mimboland’, a linguistically divided nation presided over by none other than President Longstay and suffering from endemic corruption, failing public services and wild nepotism whose similarities with the author’s native Cameroon are hard to miss.

(Book Review) Cameroon GCE Crisis: A Test of Anglophone Solidarity

Francis B. Nyamnjoh & Richard Fonteh Akum (eds). The Cameroon GCE Crisis: A Test of Anglophone Solidarity. Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon, 2008. 376 pages Paperback . £24.95. Available from African Books Collective.

This book richly documents the battles fought by the Anglophone community in Cameroon to safeguard the General Certificate of Education (GCE), a symbol of their cherished colonial heritage from Britain, from attempts by agents of the Ministry of National Education to subvert it. These battles opposed a mobilised and determined Anglophone civil society against numerous machinations by successive Francophone-dominated governments to destroy their much prided educational system in the name of 'national integration'. When Southern Cameroonians re-united with La République du Cameroun in 1961, they claimed that they were bringing into the union 'a fine education system' from which their Francophone compatriots could borrow. Instead, they found themselves battling for decades to save their way of life. Central to their concerns and survival as a community is an urgent need for cultural recognition and representation, of which an educational system free of corruption and trivialisation through politicisation is a key component.

Intellectual and Social Responsibility in Scholarship: Lessons from Professor Issa Shivji

Francis B. Nyamnjoh reflects on the central role Issa Shivji has played in the development of African revolutionary scholarship.

It is 15th July 2006 at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Issa G. Shivji, at 60, is giving his valedictory lecture. Titled “Lawyers in Neoliberalism: Authority’s Professional Supplicants or Society’s Amateurish Conscience”, the lecture marks the end of a rich and distinguished 36 year career of selfless service that started as a tutorial assistant in May 1970 and was crowned with full professorship in July 1986. The lecture is on a theme that has been at the centre of Shivji’s humanity and scholarship since his student days in East Africa and the United Kingdom.

The Disillusioned African, by Francis B. Nyamnjoh

Reviewed by Rosemary E. Ekosso

Francis B. Nyamnjoh. The Disillusioned African. Bamenda, Cameroon: Langaa Publishers, 2007. 264 pages. Available on Amazon.com & Michigan State University Press

The relatively few people who read books published and/or written by Africans (when they can find them) might find that some of these works are famous for little other than their typesetting errors. I once got into trouble for telling a rather self-regarding young reporter that while I thought it was a good thing for a country to have a vibrant private press, its effect was somewhat marred by the fact that half the words in his newspaper were spelled backwards.

Needless to say, we did not part on friendly terms. However, the reason I mentioned this is that Langaa, which last year published the book I am attempting to review (it was first published in 1995 by Nooremac press) seems to have escaped this. It is true that a meal is much more that the plate on which it is served, but one does rather like clean plates in these matters.

(Book Review) A Nose for Money by Francis B. Nyamnjoh.

Reviewed by Owen B. Sichone, Research and Publication Head, OSSREA, Addis Ababa (First Published in OSSREA Bulletin Vol.IV, No.3, October 2007, pp. 44-45)

A Nose for Money. Francis B. Nyamnjoh. Nairobi, Kenya: East African Educational Publishers Ltd. 2006. [ISBN: 9966-25-427-7; Price: Kshs: 350 US$: 5 Euros: 4]

This is the story of the street savvy but (in school terms) poorly educated Prospere, a citizen of Mimboland (a sort of drunkard's haven) who manages through fate and drive and ambition (essential tools for the get-rich-or-die-trying entrepreneur) to change his life-station from beer delivery man to what Zambians would call a /prominent businessman/ with friends in high places.

"Souls Forgotten"; Francis Nyamnjoh's Latest Novel

Francis Nyamnjoh. Souls Forgotten . Bamenda, Langaa Publishers. 2008, 360 pages. Available on amazon.com and Michigan State University Press.

One day, Mama Ngonsu told her son: "Normally, a child grew up and stayed around to help his parents. The world has changed, and things are no longer as they used to be. Things must not be normal all the time, otherwise life would not be life." When Emmanuel Kwanga gets a University scholarship, he travels from the lake and hills of Abehema to the Great City. Everyone in the village has invested in him their hopes for the good life. When the life they've imagined is cut short by the University guillotine, Emmanuel Kwanga must struggle to make sense of what the good life means - for himself and for Abehema - in a world where things are no longer as they used to be.

This novel is about coming of age and coming to terms in Mimboland. It is also about the fragility of life and the strength of the human spirit. The filth and screaming splendor of the city and the perplexed tranquility of the village are juxtaposed, as the tension and conviviality between tradition and modernity are lived and explored.