(Book Review) Habiba My Habiba by Bob Danierla

Bob Danierla. Habiba My Habiba. Authorhouse (2009). 252 pages. Available on amazon.com 

Habiba My Habiba is set against the horror of the AIDS epidemic in Africa.  This is a personalized account of a young man who set out to earn money in a distant city in order to get married.

But in due course he is distracted from his efforts to earn money and takes up with several loose women.

He falls in love with one of them, who has a heart-rending story of her own to tell.  These star-crossed lovers, finally having found each other, come face to face with a bleak future exasperated by their lack of money or resources.

Even as they struggle with the practical problems of trying to earn a decent living, and traveling to another country for work, they are faced with the ultimate problem, AIDS, which they called simply “the syndrome.”

It is a tragic Romeo and Juliet story with a modern twist that focuses on this modern scourge.

About the Author
Bob Danierla was born in the North West province of Cameroon in 1971. Completed elementary and secondary education in Cameroon and university education in Nigeria. He returned to Cameroon and worked in various capacities both in Education and industry before moving to the United States. He lives with his wife and two children in the city of Alexandria Virginia. Habiba My Habiba is Bob Danierla's second novel, Death of the Oracle being his first. These are two books that are a must read.

Comments

[Ralf]

I happen to have read this beautiful book, but I was quite frustrated by the fact that this very talented Cameroonian writer decided to hide behind a Western nom de plume. Good work anyway

[Angela]

Commercial calculus. Name of author and title are very important in the book business especially if you are a new author and know your market. There is a Cameroonian president of an American university who changed his given name to an odd science fiction kind of name. I have little doubt that his name change in combination with astute planning, hard work and preparation made this possible.

http://multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/upj/30418/

Until the 1970s Jews in America changed their names to "less Jewish-sounding names" to avoid the stings of antisemitism. If one of our own tweaks his or her name in America, it is an old American tradition. Black Americans who want to identify with their African ancestry take up African names. It is a very American thing to do. If your packaging is in the way of success, you repackage including changing the name. This I know is hard to understand for those steeped in tradition.

If you go to a nail place, ask one of those girls from China, Vietnam or Korea what her name is. It will always be Amy, Ivy or Sue and never her birth name. It is just a way of doing business.

[nahjela]

Abeg Angela go sit down somewher. That is total bull. So the Soyinkas, the Chinua Achebes and more recently Chimamanda Ngozis nko? Which European-sounding named African author can boast of attaining the world acclaim of these afore-mentioned authentic African authors?

People just like the 'easy' way out. Africans be proud of where you come from; in every aspect!

Talent does not hide. Same as if you have no talent, even if you change your name to the most English sounding name, it will still get you nowhere.

[Unknown Author]

What’s in a name really?
As I look as the crow flies out of my window, at the dazzling morning sun coming in out of its horizon, I smile because of the secrets yet unfolded, and unfounded. I am crammed with muddle up emotions because a new day is yet born again and I cannot pretend to be any wiser than days gone by. As I sense gaudily of the seconds just past, of the minutes gone just like seconds ago, of days and weeks then years long stolen very soon beyond my nose, then I look up again and as the sun sets, knowing it would in next to no time be dark with another sinful night to steal away my dreams of acumen, my sisters, I can only wobble at the deeds behind closed doors, those that make me screech in panic and pant for breath because someone is troubled about my double spirit, seems to me like a déjà vu. Who if truth be told am I precious aficionado?
I am the third of Zodiac linked with storytellers, chock-full of verve and would find irresistible to speak with the tongue of letters. Feel not gloomy dear soul for having read my tale, I was not born to be fêted, Soyinka and Achebe I cannot bathe their feet, but to tell you I am not swollen with pride for my genesis would be a dishonor, yet what really is in a name but just a word? When you are born to be in and of yourself, with naught liken to you, but the wolf and its tie to the nurturing of Romulus and Remus, and named for Castor and Pollux, yet others call you "Hercules and Apollo," or "Triptolemus and Iasion, you make me feel like a sinner for daring to say I am born of two spirits. I wish there was more to a name than I discern! I know I am born of a mother who calls me son, who is yet nameless, and guided by the spirits of a late father, who gave in all but was famous for the most part to the earth from which he came. I know am natural of two worlds, I feel affection for letters, verse, the bards and the wordsmiths and verbal magicians. I am the symbol of the anonymous as it enters the phase of duality. I am the artist, and at the same time the being next door. I love to recite a good story to a fine listener and I would be devoted to being branded only by the stories I recount. I wouldn’t be corrupt if my two personalities can’t stay under one skin you think? I know the Christians say, “in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”. If you ask them they would say there is three in one. What a repugnance, what psychosis, yet they discern not what tribe or village He be part of? Oh sinful earth, what really is in a name?
Could Danierla be the natural ruler of the Third House of the Zodiac, commonly referred to as the "House of Communication" and known in Vedic Astrology as the "Place of the Goddess of the Moon?" In his’ first novel Death of the Oracle amid the people of the Nsobans, Danierla would suggest “Who would mentor him”, and if you add Bob which is the short form of Robert, and a given name in Cameroon borrowed as for the most part virtually everything to boot, Bob Danierla would mean, “Who would mentor Bob?”
As I lift up my head to the sirens of the fire engine escaping down the beltway, I question if yet an added life has been snatched? If yet another abode has been rest afire or if someone besides has thought of a further hoax, and as the genuineness dawns on me, I know it has become a bona fide, we on no account in actual fact know what lurks further than our grasp, just as no one really knows what may be in a name we may just as well enjoy the illusionary lunacy of an unheard of author and hope he lives to tell another story my countryman, for we earn a name for the things we do, and not for what we are named as we bewail our entrance onto this forlorn terra firma. I adore you for having spurred the concern; it is for that we spill the ink of our souls, goodbye precious reader my ink is trailing and I most go before it dies a premature death.

4.25 AM, Alexandria Virginia