“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 .
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.
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 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. 
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. 
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. 
This major study explores the role of the mass media in promoting democracy and empowering civil society in Africa. The author contextualizes Africa within in the rapidly changing global media and shows how patterns of media ownership and state control have evolved and the huge difficulties under which most African media workers labour. The author also explores the whole question of media ethics and professionalism in Africa. The general analysis is supported by a very detailed unique case study of Cameroon. 
Recent Comments