"The Title poem relates to most important poetry of all ages: It reveals how, in the search for right images, metaphors and most apposite expressions, we often find ourselves listening to the voice that ̀bids us return to our own sources.' Since the poet has discovered the right idioms, he has, throughout the poem, undergone the process of depersonalization, has indeed obtained objectivity: Little of himself is felt in the poem. He obtains this effect by the use of the appropriate voice--That of the priest at the ceremony." Professor Siga Asanga, ABBIA, Cameroon Cultural Review.

This is a foundational text on the production and dissemination of Anglophone Cameroon literature. The Republic of Cameroon is a bilingual country with English and French as the official languages. Ashuntantang shows that the pattern of production and dissemination of Anglophone Cameroon literature is not only framed by the minority status of English and English-speaking Cameroonians within the Republic of Cameroon, but is also a reflection of a postcolonial reality in Africa where mostly African literary texts published by western multi-national corporations are assured wide international accessibility and readership. This book establishes that in spite of these setbacks, Anglophone Cameroon writers have produced a corpus of work that has enriched the genres of prose, poetry and drama, and that these texts deserve a wider readership.

When Sembe discovers that Amu, her husband of fifteen years, is having an affair with another woman, she moves out of the matrimonial home, but is persuaded to return by relatives and friends. However, a few months later, when Amu comes home to reveal that his mistress is pregnant with his child, everything crumbles. The social networks, customs and love that had restrained her from leaving him initially are overcome by the deep feelings of betrayal. The spouses, unable to resolve the matter amicably, immerse in a needless and senseless altercation that culminates in a physical fight. Sembe moves out of the matrimonial home and the marriage collapses. The spouses are left to struggle for the custody of their three daughters and, the ownership of matrimonial property in the plush Kenya suburb of Kileleshwa, through a corrupt Kenyan judicial system. Kileleshwa is a tale of love, betrayal and corruption, set on a background of ethnic incongruity, political uncertainty and very difficult economic times.

The first major comparative study of African writing in western languages, European-language Writing in Sub-Saharan Africa, edited by Albert S. Gérard, falls into four wide-ranging sections: an overview of early contacts and colonial developments “Under Western Eyes”; chapters on “Black Consciousness” manifest in the debates over Panafricanism and Negritude; a group of essays on mental decolonization expressed in “Black Power” texts at the time of independence struggles; and finally “Comparative Vistas,” sketching directions that future comparative study might explore. An introductory essay stresses the millennia of writing in Africa, side by side with a richly eloquent and artistic set of vernacular oral traditions; written and oral traditions have become interwoven in adaptations of imported forms and linguistic innovations that challenge traditional “high” literary norms. Gérard uses the mathematical concept of “fuzzy sets” to explain why the focus on “Black Africa” has led him to set aside for future analysis the literatures produced in North Africa, which fall under the influence of Muslim civilization, as well as the diasporic literatures of the New World. Over sixty scholars from twenty-two countries contribute specialized studies of creative writing by leading authors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries such as Achebe, Mphahlele, Ngugi, Senghor, Soyinka, and Tutuola. Critical analyses are organized primarily around regions, reflecting different colonial languages imposed through schools and other social institutions. Some authors trace the adaptation of western genres, others identify syncretism with folktales or myths. The volumes are attentive to the heterogeneity of national literatures addressed to polyethnic and multilingual populations, and they note the instrumental politics of language in newly independent states. A closing chapter, “Tasks Ahead,” identifies areas for future scholars to explore.

Here is a collection of sixty-two beautifully crafted poems on some of the deepest of human emotions. They celebrate love, constancy, beauty, marriage, birth and death; in the poems are hailed intellectual labour, leadership and duty. Occasionally, the poet depicts the states of his mind against the backdrop of nature, interfusing description, memory and meditation in a manner essentially romantic. The best in Ambanasom's poetry is matter and manner combined. The striking force of the poems lies in the intriguing relationship between romanticism and romance. Ambanasom's romanticism is concerned with the concept of nature as a universal being or a cosmic entity, nostalgia, the attempt to link his childhood with the present and the future, and the response to nature at different levels of his development. The poet also demonstrates a penchant for rural subject matter, places and people. In the poet of romance there is a more direct expression of basic human emotions, in particular of love that is enchanting, possessing, seductive, and alluring. We find in the poems, love that is reciprocal and imbued with constancy and understanding.