Date: Sat, 22 May 1999 00:46:57 -0800
From: Nilofar Khan <nelkhan-AT-internetcds.com>
Subject: Review


Dear List members,

Juliana Makuchi Nhaf Abbenyi, author of the brilliant critical book:
Gender in African Women's Writing: Identity, Sexuality, and Difference
has a collection of short fictions to her credit now : Your Madness, Not
Mine. 

This collection is an excellent must read for
teachers/scholars/inquisitive readers of African Literature,
Post-Colonial Literature, World Literature and Women Studies.  

I have composed a brief review of this new book for Amazon.Com, but I am
posting it here too in the hope of striking up a delicious, fruitful
conversation with some fellow reader.

			Your Madness, Not Mine - A Review.

       “We’re the matches that will light the gunpowder that has been
lying cold like ash.  If we don’t take a step who will . . . ?”   
 
	This definitive assertion and rhetorical question,  posed by an
enterprising Beba woman in Juliana Makuchi Nfah Abbenyi’s collection of
short stories, Your Madness, Not Mine,  is evocative of the author’s own
project which in many ways is as potent and innovative as the above
metaphor. 
    To read Makuchi, a Cameroonian woman writer, and postcolonial
intelligentsia in the West, is to land at once in a rich, complex and
contradictory world, bubbling with tensions ensuing from gender
conflicts, polyglossia and constant shiftings of center / periphery,
self / other dichotomies. 
    In a span of nine short stories, Makuchi guides us through the
contours of her native African land which shares the patriarchal history
with the rest of the world, while exposing its own unique gender
quarrels, compromises, and victories.  The first story, “The Healer”,
for instance, plays upon the myth of motherhood that is upheld as the
major or sole criterion of womanhood in most cases.  It shows how a
society that sees  barren women as a curse, can end up shoving  them
into the hands of  wicked charlatans who cheat them ruthlessly and drive
them insane.  The title story also has a woman domesticated and deprived
of individual freedom  by her typically patriarchal husband  despite
being educated and capable of making financial contributions to the
household. 
    But if these are stories of women’s biological pathology and gender
vulnerability, then in “Election Fever” we have a story of women’s
manipulative and  conniving powers. The grandmother in this story takes
her entire family by surprise when she secretively joins many opposition
political parties and accepts bribery in the shape of cash and Pakistani
rice. She also instills a lesson on flippancy and exploitation that
leaders and followers mutually play as part of the political game, in
her young granddaughter who accompanies her to  party meetings. 
    “Bayam Sellam” however, is the story that presents the traditional
strength and entrepreneurship of Camaroonian women in the shape of
market women. Descendants of strong willed mothers and grandmothers,
these market whizzes possess the solidarity and business acumen required
to call up a strike and force the government into declaring a state of
emergency.   
    If  the women in Makuchi’s world are economically and politically
aware and active, than her men are by no means lacking behind in this
arena. They have their own share of pondering and debating over the
postcolonial scramble that Camaroon has become since independence in
1960.  Hailing from that part of central Africa which has been thrice
colonized  (Germans, Britishers and  French, all had their share of
plunder of this land) and is still struggling to wrench free from the
clutches of the neocolonial beast gnawing in the shape of capitalist
America, the men in these narratives are often concerned about the grim
socio-economic fate that awaits them.   “American Lottery” and “The
Forest Will Claim You Too” are two such stories which delineate the
myriad of home grown as well as imposed problems that jitter the heart
of this country.  Government corruption in particular, and elitist
callousness in general, French aggression and racism, in addition to the
economic exploitation by next door neighbors like Nigeria, deforestation
or “environmental genocide” by both French and Asians, leading to other
social hazards like “timber babies”, and loss of ancient herbal
medicinal provisions are some of the ailments that contribute towards
breaking the backbone of Camaroonian economy, and falsifying its
persistent efforts towards modernization. No wonder Makuchi  blatantly
points at the devaluation of the CFA (the Camaroonian currency) and the
escalating inflation scenario to be the root cause behind the brain
drain that America is enjoying today.  The implicit question that
lingers right under the narrative surface seems to be: If the “Third
World” youth is often eager to have a way out of this labyrinthian hole
and aspires for that alluring land of  promises, who is to blame?  
     Nonetheless, it is relieving to find that not all Camaroonian youth
are attracted to the West.  Peter and his friends in “American Lottery”,
for instance,  are well aware of  the dilemmas of identity loss,
alienation and frustration that  are quick to follow the fate of those
who turn their face away from the poverty and confusion of motherland in
the hope of totally adopting and assimilating a foreign culture. The
same densely packed story depicts local  riots, curfews and rebellions
to be amongst other things that  keep Camaroonians
perpetually involved in their country's future.  
     Like her themes, Makuchi’s images and metaphors are often drawn
from both indigenous and foreign sources. So we have palm and plantain,
wrappa and nsaa, juxtaposed with the image of the Marlboro man with his
will - o’- the - wisp pose and foreign embassies with their whining
twining queue of locals. Her stories, with both rural
and urban settings also often break into poetic strings of thought  and
are embellished with sprinklings of the Beba language, some pidgin,
Anglophone as well as Francophone diction.  
     Reading these superb pieces of fiction has definitely been a very
enriching experience for me.  If you are looking for thought provoking
yet lucid, and passionately written fictionalized theory, or theorized
fiction, then this is the text for you.

Happy Reading :)
Nilofar Khan.


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