| ISBN | 9789956790043 |
| Pages | 84 |
| Dimensions | 203 x 127 mm |
| Published | 2013 |
| Publisher | Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon |
| Format | Paperback |
On the Other Side of Fifty and Rays of Lamentation
by Mbuh Tennu Mbuh
This collection dissects post-independence Cameroon as a representative postcolonial junction. The history that assists in the writing of the poems is a necessary background to understand the dislocated vision of an erstwhile independent territory. After a patriotic pastime of sweeping every bit of rubbish under the carpet of national unity for over fifty years, the collection summons us to introspect on the consequences of feeding and living on a national lie. It is only after such reflection that, hopefully, remedial gestures can offer ‘new dreams on the dawn of new sleep’.
Reviews
“The Other Side of Fifty and Rays of Lamentation has the timbre of unrelieved angst glaring at (or stunned by) abject imbecility flaunted in infantile choruses – counterfeit religion, national and international lies, flatteries – of falsities vis-à-vis telling circumstances. Intricate allegories scintillate in terse tidiness to flay these convolutions of state, media, befuddled intelligentsia and misinformed pulpits of insincerity. The insidious schemes of Western and South-Eastern looters gut-sicken the poet to retch vehemently while none-the-less genuflecting to genuineness, national passion, and guileless spontaneity. Read with and to the heart, this collection reveals a taut heart-grappling with root issues – self-hood, religion, national and social loyalties and opportunism”
“Mbuh’s allegorical verse constitutes a ringing indictment of contemporary Cameroon—its political ambivalence and moral degeneration driven by the forces of adulation and crass materialism. The style is rollicking and satirical, pithy and encompassing, and couched in evocative imagery.”