Francis Nyamnjoh

Francis Nyamnjoh's "Stories from Abakwa" Seen Through the Eyes of a Teenage Student in Abakwa

Reviewed by Anye-Nkwenti, 15 Year Old Form Five Student, Sacred Heart College Mankon, Bamenda

Stories from Abakwa  is a collection of stories centred on happenings in the town of Abakwa and its peripheries. These stories reflect past experiences in our lives or issues plaguing or society today. Summarily, these issues reveal deceit (in cases where it is actually applied and almost), corruption, witchcraft, alcoholism among youths, polygamy and its ills and remorse (common with youths who have messed up their lives and are now paying the price).

Book Review: "Stories From Abakwa"

Reviewed by Kangsen Wakai (Originally published in The Post)

Francis Nyamnjoh. Stories From Abakwa. Bamenda: Cameroon. Langaa Publishers. 2007.

When Cameroon sells itself in the realm of public opinion, at home and abroad, it is sold as a bilingual, highly literate, naturally endowed, ethnically diverse, democratic and peaceful country. That is not the whole truth. 

Cameroon is in fact a bilingual country endowed with natural resources; it is culturally diverse and boasts a highly literate, albeit unemployed and underemployed, adult population. However, the truth is that Cameroon is far from being as united, democratic and the haven of peace its leaders would want Cameroonians and the world to believe. Plainly speaking, it is not.

Book Review: "The Convert" by Francis Nyamnjoh

This play tackles the theatrically attractive but ethically complex issue of Christian fundamentalism. Nyamnjoh, as a sociologist is well qualified to explore the social problems and psychological pressures which give rise to the born-again phenomenon, and the strong appeal of fundamentalist religion.

The Convert, however is no schematic sociological tract. It deals with the conflicting imperatives in 21st century West Africa, which push ordinary people into extraordinary situations, and provides no easy solutions to the issues raised. Although the play revolves around the Ultimate Church of Christ and the four main characters affected by it, the audience is given a deftly sketched picture of a corrupt world beyond it, lacking in spiritual or community values.

Book Review: "The Disillusioned African" by Francis Nyamnjoh

This humorous tale of the naïve and curious African student-cum-philosopher wandering between North and South, the rural and the urban, has been in gestation for a period of nearly two decades.

With allusion to traditions of the philosophical novel and the picaresque, Nyamnjoh's protagonist travels from his African village to the sharply divided and socially cruel world of 1980s Britain.

By casting aside his disillusion and the traps of servitude and victimhood, The Disillusioned African reveals his creative potential for curiosity and adventure. He brings a bird's eye view, always affectionate, gently mocking, to the cultural idiosyncrasies of the new world he encounters, which throws his own African culture, politics and socio-economic realities into light relief.

Book Review: "Mind Searching" by Francis Nyamnjoh

In Mind Searching Nyamnjoh has attempted to do something rather clever - to expose, through the attitudes, feelings and thoughts of one man and a very simple story, the hypocrisy and corruption of Cameroon society and humanity in general, often using understatement and irony in good effect.

The commentary is unremittingly cynical and returns again and again to corruption, callous squandering, exploitation, prostitution, and other fairly worn butts.

The book depicts a society where basic freedoms are shackled, and thinking aloud treasonable. Hence the mental ramblings of the narrator and central character Judascious Fanda Yanda, in the form of an extended monologue full of observations, anecdotes and asides written from the point of view of an apparently insouciant naive.