Review of Francis B. Nyamnjoh’s The Travail of Dieudonné

Nyamnjoh’s novel is replica of the socio-political goings-on in Mimboland, a fictional country calqued on the author’s home country, Cameroon, but which could easily represent any African country in the throes of underdevelopment, bad governance and economic morass. The author’s acrimonious diatribe on the politicisation of alcoholism is a salient feature of his satirical narrative. While the pauperised masses consume alcohol to numb the pangs of hunger and frustration, those at the helm employ it as a tool to keep dissidence in leash. Dieudonné admits:

There is a strange thing that has gripped and numbed us all since the colonial days. Alcohol. Its presence is widespread. It has invaded and consumed us all, making ash of manhood and nonsense of women who dare smile its way. (p. 90)

Recourse to linguistic hybridity as a mode of writing cannot escape the reader’s notice. Nyamnjoh has a predilection for language mixing. His writing technique is reminiscent of Birago Diop’s style in Les contes d’Amadou Koumba (1961). Like Diop, he writes, ‘I am a nothing man. I am l’homme falsifié par la vérité’.(p 71) This sentence is a mosaic of English, Pidgin and French. It serves as a commentary on the poly-glossic backdrop against which the text is written. All too often, the writer juxtaposes French and English expressions as if to remind his readers that his characters are bilingual individuals proficient in both languages, as the following remark made by Dieudonné clearly illustrates: ‘Nous vivons une terre des mots pas une terre des miracles—We live a world of words not a world of miracles.’ (p. 30) This text is distinctive in its interplay of indigenised and standardised expressions.

Oftentimes, the writer spices his narrative with indigenous language expressions in order to make the discourse respond more realistically to the prevailing mentality of his characters. Dieudonné’s unquestionable faith in providence, for example, is expressed through his frequent use of the Arabic/Hausa expression ’Insha’ Allah’. (p. 32) Recourse to Africanised expressions offers Nyamnjoh the opportunity to shed light on the worldview and thought patterns of his characters. By availing himself of the technique of linguistic indigenisation he succeeds in underscoring the impact of native tongues on creative writing in Africa.

Pidginisation enables him to bridge the conceptual gap created by the use of European languages considered too poorly equipped to convey the speech mannerisms and sensibilities of Africans. The novel is replete with pidgin expressions that highlight the prism through which Nyamnjoh’s characters perceive reality, as the following excerpt illustrates: ‘Cow wey yi get tail na God di driv’am fly.’ (p. 40) One can hardly speak of this writer’s narrative technique without reckoning with the linguistic novelty that characterises his style of writing. Alternating between French, English, pidgin and vernacular languages is a technique that he uses adeptly to depict the various socio-cultural peculiarities of Mimboland. Thus The Travail of Dieudonné addresses the language question in Cameroonian literature in particular and in fictional writing in Africa as a whole.

This text is intriguing in several respects, not least of which is the significance of the act of naming. Onomastics is made to bear a stamp of cultural identity. As the protagonist points out, ‘Today I mostly remember that village as the land where each day of the week had a female name and a male name, and girls and boys were named after the day they were born.’ (p. 62) By christening his main character ‘Dieudonné’, Nyamnjoh invites an ambivalent interpretation of the nomenclature. Are Dieudonné’s travails attributable to providence – a force he fervently believes in – or to extraneous factors against which he is powerless? Is he a victim of his own foibles, notably his uncontrollable craving for alcohol? Each name in the text is imbued with some signification, a comment on the name-bearer. Chopngomna is pregnant with meaning. This government functionary is not only a spendthrift but also a compulsive embezzler. Nicknamed ‘the man with the bleeding wallet’, (p. 73) he ‘had identified himself with a proud tradition of the civil service, where a goat is meant to eat where it is tethered, and where it is normal and indeed to be celebrated, for someone “wrongly” accused of illicit self-enrichment to put the records straight by declaring: Ces sont les gratitudes et les servitudes de la fonction publique.’ (p. 73) He is associated with the endemic corruption that has become second nature in Mimboland.

Nyamnjoh’s female characters are given fancier names. The bartender at the Grand Canari bar is branded ‘Precious’ on account of her ‘slim dark-skinned beauty.’ (p. 155) Dieumerci has an undeclared lust for her because she has kept her ebony dark complexion intact.’ (p. 158) In his own words, Precious is ‘omelette nature’. (p. 158) The telltale sobriquet she has earned on account of the ludicrously small salary she earns at the Grand Canari is ‘SIDA (Salaire insuffisant difficilement acquis)’,(p. 159) which could be translated as ‘Insufficient Salary Painfully Earned’. Her boss, the sumptuous amply endowed bejewelled proprietress of Grand Canari, is named Madame Gazellia Mamelle on account of her flare for money. She ‘has a nose for money’. (p. 156)

The Travail of Dieudonné is a rap on totalitarianism. Nyamnjoh takes a jibe at Africa’s demo-dictators, the likes of President Longstay of Mimboland. By all means fair or foul these lame duck leaders manipulate elections to remain in power in perpetuity. They orchestrate wanton destruction of property and human life when faced with the likelihood of exit from power. Together with inept lieutenants like Chopngomna, they aid and abet the dereliction of duty, impunity and the misappropriation of state funds.

Bleak as this portrait may be, this novel appears futuristic. It is a harbinger of good tiding and the advent of genuine Uhuru to Africa: ‘The freedoms of the future are yet to be born.’ (p. 163) Dieudonné may be at his wits’ end, he may be an ‘objet’ to be transferred from one master to the other, yet there is hope for a better tomorrow. His faith in providence is his toughest armour against the adversities of life. As he observes, ‘The more I try and fail in my attempt to shape my life, the more I realize how my will is but a tiny bit of Allah’s grand design.’ (p. 163)

Throughout the narrative, the reader appreciates not just Nyamnjoh’s skill at storytelling but also his verve at word-smiting. In a nutshell, The Travail of Dieudonné is a virtuoso art of linguistic innovation. The only problem that the text may pose for a monolingual reader is its linguistic and cultural plurality, which requires of the reader to be not only multilingual but also pluri-cultural. But the novelist endeavours to mitigate the severity of this potential hurdle by resorting to communicative translation all along.

* Francis B. Nyamnjoh is an associate professor and head of publications and dissemination with the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA). The Travail of Dieudonné is available from East African Educational Publishers.
* Peter Wuteh Vakunta, a Cameroonian, is poet, storyteller and essayist whose works include Lion Man and Other Stories.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.