'The Disillusioned African', by Francis Nyamnjoh
05.02.2008
I would not call this book a narrative in the conventional sense, but it tells a story nonetheless. It is a story of time, the times we live in. It is also (and this is where then non-narrative part comes in) a story of a man's mind. Charles is this man. His story is an engaging mixture of curiosity, great learning, down-to-earth humour, and social comment. He has left Cameroon for Merrie England to study philosophy, and he compares and contrasts the English society (and to my mind, the entire Western society by extension) with Africa. The hilarity occasioned by some of his observations is alone adequate recompense for buying the book.