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Laughing Store is just what we need in times of troubles and uncertainties such as these. A book of humour from an acclaimed master of laughter, it lifts our hearts and raises our spirits. Jokes that touch about every domain of existence - from sex to religion, from births to deaths, from politics to the beer parlour, from the courtroom to the hospital. And most important of all, conceived in the supremely original Cameroonian flavour of jokes.
This rich conversational auto-biography tells the story of the political life of Ndeh Ntumazah who was born in Mankon in 1926, spent the best part of his life suffering and sacrificing for the freedom of Cameroon, and died in London on January 21, 2010, at the age of 83, as President of the Union of the Populations of Cameroon (UPC). Ntumazah was a political activist for nearly 60 years. He joined the UPC around 1950 and remained a militant of the party until his demise. When the UPC was banned in French Cameroon in 1955, he was advised by his comrades to create another party in the Southern Cameroons, which would be the UPC in disguise. The party was called 'One Kamerun Movement - OK', with Ndeh Ntumazah as its President. Following its banning, the UPC started a war of liberation in French Cameoon, so Ntumazah from the safety of Southern Cameroons, liaised with his comrades in French Cameroon to carry out their underground operations. Ndeh Ntumazah left Cameroon to seek political asylum abroad in 1962. He stayed in Ghana, Guinea, Algeria and finally in Britain where he spent most of his time sensitising the world about the plight of Cameroon using various avenues like writing, conferences and deputations. Ntumazah is dead, but he lives on because his life stands out as a point of focus.
The Crabs of Bangui
(2010)
Every man lives for himself, using his freedoms to attain his personal aims, and feels with his whole being that he can at any moment perform or not perform this or that action. The higher a man stands in the social scale, the more connections he has with others and the more power he has over them, the more conspicuous is the predestination and inevitability of every act he commits. Upon this philosophy, a former banker, Hansel Bolingo, suddenly finds [or makes] himself the regional representative of a Chinese firm that deals in crabs in Bangui. This catapults him into a position of instant wealth. His mouth-watering affluence draws immediate attention while his hypnotic powers cause hundreds of [not-so-honest]citizens to clamour for shares from which he builds up a huge fortune. But he soon discovers that he cannot deceive everybody all the time.
A Legend of the Dead
(2009)
When the admirable Kevin Beckongncho becomes the new Paramount Chief of the much-coveted throne of Nkokonoko Small Monje as well as its new DO, Chieftaincy could finally be said to have been redeemed. But he quickly becomes a marked man, as he runs into fatal collision with an unscrupulous governmental system with which he cannot co-exist. How this great man suddenly dies, and why his people must not mourn for him, is the unresolved mystery with which Asong closes both the book and his trilogy that includes The Crown of Thorns and No Way to Die.
The personality of the highly charismatic foremost African Nationalist, Kwame Nkrumah as featured once in a while in Ghanaian fiction. For example, the celebrated Ghanaian novelist, Ayi Kwei Armah draws attention to the corrupt nature of the Nkrumah regime in his famous novel, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born. But this is by far the very first time that Kwame Nkrumah and his era have been made the main subject of a full-length novel.
The Akroma File
(2009)
Faced with debts at home and threatened by poverty, Akroma a brilliant and well-educated Ghanaian, using unorthodox means, successfully gets into Cameroon. He is bent on making a fortune. Drawing on his tremendous presence of mind and, capitalising on the early discovery that in Cameroon there is no conscience that money cannot buy, this illegal alien, travelling under three criminal identities, builds up a great amount of wealth. But he cannot buy the entire police force. One police man, Inspector Kum Dangobert, will get even with him, even if it means death. The rest of this very readable novel is about what happens when the Ghanaian evil genius is pitted against the best Cameroonian police superintendent. It is the clash of giants that ends in a cataclysm.
The Crown of Thorns
(2009)
Chief Nchindia held the Elders of his Council in total contempt, inwardly vowing to disagree with them at every point where disagreement was possible. What starts like a big joke develops into grim tragedy: the statue of the god of Nkokonoko Small Monje is discovered to have been stolen and sold to a white man! The tradition demands instant execution of the culprits. Was their Chief involved in the theft? What was worse, the crime or the punishment? Linus Asong was born in the South West Region of Cameroon in 1947. With a combined B.A honours in Education, in 1980 he entered the University of Windsor in Canada whence he graduated with a terminal degree in Creative Writing. He holds an M.A and a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Alberta, in Edmonton Canada, and is presently Associate Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at Ecole Normale Superieure Bambili (University of Yaounde 1). Asong is a stand-up humorist, a consummate portrait painter, an accomplished literary scholar, and a celebrated prolific writer with over a dozen novels to his credit.
Chopchair
(2010)
The extremely irritable and quick-tempered chieftain, Akendong II has 14 children, all girls, and is saddened by the fact that he has no chopchair, a male heir to his throne. Then news comes to him that his favourite wife has given birth to a pair of twins, boys. He is even more angered by the fact that he has two heirs, a source of trouble for his kingdom. To avoid his wrath, his councillors change the story, sending away one of the boys to grow in hiding. Learning of the truth about his birth 15 years afterwards, the prince in hiding returns, kidnaps the palace prince and demands his full share of the kingdom. His will is done, but at a very great cost to the chief's peace of mind and relationship with his people. This is by far the shortest of Asong's novels and the least complicated by comparison. But the conflicts, the hallmarks of his art are still there, so also is his breathtaking suspense.
Stranger in his Homeland
(2010)
Stranger in His Homeland completes the long-awaited trilogy of Linus Asong's fictitious village of Nkokonoko Small Monje, separately treated in The Crown of Thorns and its sequel A Legend of the Dead. However, it leads us back not to events after A Legend of the Dead, but to the crisis that created the passionately exciting The Crown of Thorns. Honest, enthusiastic, arrogant and self-righteous, Antony Nkoaleck, the first graduate of his tribe means well. But his society, entrenched in corruption, sees things differently and therefore judges him according to its own norms. Just one or two errors on Antony's part are enough to cost him his job with the government, the coveted throne of Nkokonoko Small Monje, and finally his life. It is a sad story, strongly reminiscent of Myshkin's fate in Dostoevysky's novel The Idiot, a story in which the Russian novelist vividly shows the inability of any man to bear the burden of moral perfection in an imperfect world.
No Way to Die
(2009)
What happens when a young man of talent and visions of greatness falls victim to a cruel set of circumstances over which he has no control? No Way to Die is such a story. Dennis Nunqam Ndendemajem gives up! Even when he is given a second chance to start again, he refuses to gather the broken pieces of his life together. He refuses to rebuild, and refuses to live. But he also finds no way to die.
