Perspectives on Written Cameroon Literature in English

1. Half a Century of Written Anglophone Cameroon Literature

3 1 Half a Century of Written Anglophone Cameroon Literature The year Sankie Maimo’s play, I Am Vindicated, was published by Ibadan University Press, 1959 marked the birth of Anglophone Cameroon literature. But six years earlier, in 1953, still in Nigeria, another Cameroonian, Bernard Fonlon, had written but not yet published, a major essay ‘As I See It’, a treatise on the future and welfare of Cameroon and the role of the clergy in the building of the nation, intended to memorialize his approaching ordination as a Catholic priest. Now, from 1959 to 2008 is close to 50 years, or half a century. Fifty years in the life of many individuals, couples, institutions or organizations is a time for reflection, a time for stocktaking, a period for counting their blessings or celebrating their achievements. In our literary situation the inevitable question that comes to mind is: on the eve of this mature age of 50, does Anglophone Cameroon literature have anything positive to show for its existence so far? And the general answer is yes. The thesis defended in this keynote address is that at 50 Anglophone Cameroon literature has achieved a great deal, that it is alive and doing very well; however, its creators and critics face challenges that have to be overcome if its quality and scope must be improved upon. A glance at the latest bibliography on Anglophone Cameroon literature, published in African Literature Association Bulletin early in 2004 by Joyce Ashuntantang (112 – 123) is enough to convince any doubting Thomas of the wide range of Anglophone Cameroon literary productivity. All of this creative output did not come by chance but partly by design. It is the result of a number of stimulating literary activities: debates in 4 classrooms or clubs, discussions in some of our newspapers and the radio, workshops, seminars, conferences and book launches within the Anglophone literary community before 1982, and especially thereafter. In this regard we should single out for recognition a few individuals and groups that have done a great deal to promote creative writing in Anglophone Cameroon. We must mention here the significant editorial role played by Professor Bernard Fonlon in ABBIA, Cameroon Cultural Review, which was partly a forum for fostering many creative writers, his Creative Writing Class of 1972 in the Federal University of Cameroon, Yaoundé, and his literary contests in short fiction writing; we must acknowledge here Professor Charles Alobwed’Epie whose University Poetry Club has done a lot to awaken consciousness in poetry writing and poetry appreciation among many writers of English expression; we must applaud here the laudable endeavours of Professor Bole Butake who, while still a student in the Yaoundé University, edited The Mould and Thunder On the Mountain, journals of creative writing where many aspiring writers cut their teeth on the art of imaginative writing; and finally we must recognize here the crucial efforts of Professor John Nkemngong Nkengasong, current President of Anglophone Creative Writers’ Association during whose tenure many Anglophone creative works have been published with the help of subvention from the Ministry of Culture. Now he has launched a poetry contest. Three publishing houses, Buma Kor in Yaoundé, Patron Publishing House in Bamenda, and Editions CLE in Yaoundé, have helped to publish some Anglophone Cameroon literary works, while two theatre troupes stand head and shoulders above the rest. On the one hand there is the Musinga Drama Group, founded in 1974 by Victor Elame Musinga which helped to perform many of his own plays in several Anglophone towns. On the other there is the University of Yaoundé Theatre and the Flame Players who worked in close 5 collaboration with Bole Butake to take the latter’s plays to jammed theatre halls in some major towns of the Anglophone provinces in Cameroon. Prior to 1999 the Flame Players had even staged Butake’s Shoes and Four Men in Arms in three German cities. The history of Anglophone Cameroon creative writing will be incomplete without, at least, a paragraph on Balafon: An Anthology of Cameroon Literature in English (1986) edited by G. De La Taille, K. Werner and V. Tarkang. The uniqueness of this text lies in being the first of its kind as far as Anglophone Cameroon is concerned. It consists of the works of 15 Anglophone Cameroon imaginative writers, grouped under five sections according to the following genres: the novel, the short story, poetry, drama, and the essay. Each...