Poetry
Kamerun! Kamerun!
Not translated into English
Élolongué Epanya Yondo · 1960
Synopsis
Poems dedicated to the poet's wife, Renée, and to two of his aunts. The collection sings of the woman as mother, then, beyond her, of the first mother: the native land, which the title calls twice by its name. A present-day reader, Timba Bema, hears in it at least three songs that could serve as the anthem of a truly liberated country, made of love of the homeland, service given with joy, sacrifice willingly made for it, dignity and honour.
Context
The first edition was published in Paris in 1960 by Présence africaine, printed in Dole by the Presses jurassiennes: ninety-six pages, texts in several languages and a portrait of the author on the cover. It was the year Cameroon gained independence. Cameroonian readers saw in it a programme of struggle for cultural liberation, carried by an assertive nationalism and by the claim to an identity of its own. The publisher reissued the book in 1999, in one hundred and one illustrated pages, with texts in Duala alongside the French.
Who it is for
About a hundred pages, in French and Douala. It helps to know that the country became independent in the year of its publication.
Prizes and reception
No prize found. The collection remains in its publisher's catalogue, which still sells it in 2026 among its poets of Africa and the Caribbean.
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