Francis Nyamnjoh

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.