The Betrayed Town and Other Poems

“I really enjoyed perusing Roselyne Jua’s collection of what, for want of a more illuminating expression, may be described as a rich variety of poems in which she sings to the tune of the music of her own soul on subjects as diverse as nature, nostalgia, prostitution, the sense of loss, exploitation, nonchalance, and so forth. She writes poetry into which she movingly pours her grief and frustrations, resulting from certain practices and occurrences. Jua has a good eye for the natural world and still a better one for details, for particular places, situations and events. In spite of the strong indignation Jua feels against injustice, misconduct and the absence of foresightedness in society, she is capable of rising up in praise of hilarious Africa, throbbing with life, vibrating with music and dance and replete with spectacle and nourishment. Jua laughs at others, but she is not incapable of laughing at herself. I invite students, teachers and the general readership to read and reread this beautiful collection of poems, bringing their personal intellectual experiences to bear on them.”

“In a world where the lurid and dramatic have become the standard fare in representations of Africa, it is refreshing to read poems such as Roselyn Jua’s which depict the continent as a land of ordinary people, living ordinary lives, partaking in the ordinary nostalgias and anxieties, the everyday joys and sorrows that beset ordinary people everywhere in the world. [….]Indeed, in these poems, the speaking voice guides us through a poetic experience that enjoins us to look out for the ‘insignificant’ detail that produces profound insight, to listen for the nuance of language where meaning arises out of paradox, irony, and understatement rather than through the hyperbolic, overladen word. It is only by cultivating a stance of complex looking and listening in this manner that we will come to a deeper appreciation of the fuller import of these poems.”