Francis Nyamnjoh

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 ».