Iya and Mambo meet each other at a moment when both are carrying something heavy. Who came to you first, and what did you want their friendship to say that neither girl could say alone? Mambo came first. She arrived…
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Q and A with Marie Helene Ngoah on Translating The Shape of Unbroken Things
When you first read The Shape of Unbroken Things, what did you hear in Comfort’s voice that you knew you had to maintain in French? As a translator, I believe our role goes beyond transferring words from one language to another.…
On Territoriality and African Literature
This three-part diagram traces the literary feud between Chinua Achebe and Ayi Kwei Armah, as well as Armah’s conflictual relationship with the Heinemann African Writers’ Series, for which Achebe served as editorial advisor until 1972. The conflict was sparked by…
When You Read Suzanne Césaire, You Take Your Koutla
“When you read Suzanne, you take your Koutla.” Those are the words Valérie Adam said to me in Le Bureau d’Aimé Césaire during my last visit to my home country, Martinique. It is also this phrase that reignited the…
Learning to Feel the World Differently
I first became aware that my way of seeing the world was not neutral through an encounter that felt fleeting at the time but has stayed with me ever since. I was at a community event as a reporter, working…
Killing Achebe
While my former friends were having profound literary conversations at Conference Two in Yaoundé today, I went there and stole the original handwritten manuscript of Things Fall Apart. But see eh, that didn’t just happen the way I said it…
Lifesavers
Fifteen-year-old Belinda made up her mind to take her life while in the bathroom on Saturday afternoon. She was bathing at 2 pm, because that’s what one did during school vacations when they had nothing to do. Somehow, even if…
100 Days of Cameroonian Literature
For 100 days, between December 2, 2017 and March 12, 2018, we ran a social media campaign to shed more light on Cameroonian writing, called 100 Days of Cameroonian Literature
Anglophone Cameroon Literature at Crossroads: An Interview with Bate Besong
Years after his death, we revisit Bate Besong’s legacy by republishing one of his most in-depth interviews
A Brief History of Bakwa Magazine
We trace our ancestry and the circumstances leading to the creation of Bakwa Magazine
