Francis Nyamnjoh

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.