Book Review: "Stories From Abakwa"

Author:  Francis B. Nyamnjoh
Publisher: Camerooon.  Langaa Publishers.  2007
Reviewer: Kangsen Feka Wakai
Price: $19.95 (US), 14.95 (UK), CDN$ 21.14 (Canada) and EUR 17.94 (Europe)

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.

Stories From Abakwa, a collection of short stories by English speaking Cameroonian author, Francis B. Nyamnjoh is a literary vignette that captures the everyday life of ordinary Mimbolanders [Cameroonians]; their aspirations, desires, fears, sounds, mores, strengths, failures, vulnerabilities, and triumphs-not the utopian creation of some marketing guru.

In this collection, Nyamnjoh, reminiscent of Congolese painter J'aime Cheri Samba, transforms his writer's pad into a tableau on which each story like crayons create sardonic pastels of Mimboland [Cameroon] reality. 

In any case, our entry into Nyamnjoh's Mimboland is via Prupranpang, where Freeboy Etuge, a non-indigene betrays the trust of his host community by engineering a plot against them.  After a war is fought and the entire royal lineage wiped out, Freeboy is enthroned as reigning monarch in Prupranpang by his allies, the conquering Esuangsuans.

Strange Stranger is a tale of adultery, lust, palm-wine, treachery and violence. But it is more than that.  At its best, it plays out like an allegorical tragedy of post-colonial African societies where the blood of goodwill continues to nourish the barren fields of treachery.   In fact, it is just one amongst many metaphorical portraits the author sketches to illustrate the frailty of Mimbolanders, and humans in general.   

Perhaps the charm of this collection lie in the fact that no story or character makes any attempt to proselytize to the reader about the obvious. The characters emerge as flawed as the values they are compelled to abide by. Yet, others possess strength only comparable to the passion that drives them. 

The power in these tales lies in Nyamnjoh's ability to equip his characters with humor and pathos that are contagious.The stories have a dynamism and genuineness that are commendable.

Nyamnjoh uses this ability in Almost Too Late To Get Drunk, Thunder No Di Lie and Night Rocking amongst others to capture the palm-wine drinking, dark-alley running, spouse beating, mischief, beer-drinking, prostituting, laughter, sadness, joy, magic, tragedy, and infinite rhythm of post-colonial Africa. 

These stories are more than about a given space captured within the frame of a given time.  These stories are about the inclinations, motivations, conflicts, fears and doubts of individuals in a society in transition.  Even though, a few of these stories could be slighted for unjustifiable instances of abruptness, they are more than about a place.  In a nutshell, they are about people in very human situations; hence their universality.   

The toast of the collection, Thoughts In Limbo is about a promising student who sees his future disintegrate before his eyes after he impregnates a classmate. They are both expelled from the school they attend as punishment for their act of fornication. But his situation is made worse when the girl's father throws him in jail. 

The narrative begins in jail and the reader is slowly pulled into the throbbing heart, moving pulse, disappearing dreams, and dashed hopes of a teenager.Peruvian Novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa has argued that the writer doesn't choose his themes; they choose him.

In these stories, Nyamnjoh has created a world he knows, but in his own terms.  Instead of Cameroon, there is Mimboland, a country in a drunken stupor. Llosa, in his dictum on fiction [Letters to a Young Novelist], poses a very pertinent question: 

What is the origin of this early inclination, the source of literary vocation, for inventing beings and stories? Llosa is convinced the reason is rebellion.' Those who immerse themselves in the lucubration of lives different from their own demonstrate indirectly their rejection and criticism of life as it is, of the world, and manifest their desire to substitute for it the creations of their imagination and dreams.'

Stories from Abakwa, with its colorful characters, tender moments, and hyperbolic plots demonstrates Llosa's observation about the creative instinct.These stories are the author's rebellion, his questioning of his reality, his Cameroonian reality. Nyamnjoh has offered us well-crafted tales that give a generous insight into a people. Especially because they unfold without limiting them to those lives and experiences that have inspired the author's rebellion. 

Stories From Abakwa can be purchased from major online bookstores such as www.amazon.com It will soon be available in bookstores in Cameroon.