This landmark volume brings together a very rich harvest of forty critical essays on Cameroon literature by Cameroon literary scholars. The book is the result of the Second Conference on Cameroon Literature which took place at the University of Buea in 1994. The Buea conference was motivated by a determination to look at Cameroon literature straight into its face and criticize it using literary criteria of the strictest kind. Gone were the times when the criticism was complacent because it was believed that a nascent literature could easily be stifled by application of rather strict cannons of literary criticism. Both writers and critics had a lot to say. Subjects dealt with ranged from general topics on literature, survival and national identity, through specialized articles on prose, poetry, drama, translation, language, folklore, children's literature, Journalism and politics. It is the hope of the volume editors that the publication of these papers will instigate the kind of actions that were recommended and that the prolific nature of Cameroon literature will equally give rise to a prolific and robust criticism.

Deux sries de manuels scolaires ont principalement programm la rpulsion de soi et l'attraction par l'autre propres aux lites d'Afrique noire: les collections des Frres missionnaires Macaire et Grill comme Mamadou et Bineta d'Andr Davesne seul ou avec J. Gouin. Un sicle aprs, pour rendre intelligible le type d'homme produit par l'Ecole trangre en colonie, nous avons remont l'itinraire parcouru travers leurs lectures par des gnrations d'coliers pour savoir quelles sources avaient aliment leur imaginaire... Dsaccord aux codes de son univers natal, incapable de concrtiser efficacement l'enseignement de l'Ecole, mais ayant peru avec certitude qu'elle seule pourtant dcerne le pedigree de la distinction nouvelle, l'enfant scolaire va simuler l'appropriation ftichiste des modles de savoir sans pour autant assimiler l'esprit de la civilisation nouvelle et t cher de prserver l'intgrit de soi en se rdimant dans une dpendance confortable qui le dispense d'entreprendre toute action par peur de mal faire ou d'tre rappel l'ordre du monde surminent. Car, comment expliquer, malgr la crise des biens et symboles, que les lites qui dcident depuis les indpendances en Afrique n'aient pas initi de stratgies discursives pour un modle autrement performant d'Ecole ? En cette re d'aspiration/ rpugnance aux ruptures, notre intention consiste dbarrasser les rapports France Afrique de leur rsidu malsain de complexes afin de les engager sur les voies de la double reconnaissance et de la diffrence. Celles-ci nous semblent seules susceptibles de restaurer la confiance entre les peuples et d'assurer la promotion d'hommes dignes de s'appeler ainsi.

Ousmane Semb ne started writing by 1952. The Black Docker, his first novel inspired by the Marseille experience was published in 1956 by Debresse. In 1957, Amiot Dumont published O Pays, mon beau Peuple, a caustic critic of the colonial plight. This second inaugural piece, clearly autobiographical and sentimental is followed up by a vast knowledge of the strike of the Dakar-Niger railway workers: God's Bits of Wood published in 1960 by Livre Contemporain. In 1961, Pr sence Africaine pulished his collection of short stories, Volta que, in 1964 the first volume of l'Harmattan which is a replay of the 28th September 1958 referendum in black Africa and in 1966 Vehi-Ciosane followed by The Money Order. To this date with six published novels and a renown Cinematographer, Ousmane Semb ne with the help of his sharp pen and his critical and observant look decides to examine the fate that the new bourgeoisie and the administrative bureaucracy mete on the downtrodden of this ignominious beauty, Dakar, the Capital of an African nation in the wake of independence. Thanks to a money order that Ibrahima Dieng wants to cash, the film maker/writer takes this character through the urban administrative labyrinth, through neighbourly disputes and through family life in the neighbourhood, highlighting and pointing in passing the crossings, abuses, vices and vicissitudes which make up this segment of life, in every aspect, exemplary. The story unfolds with the arrival of a postman carrying a letter and a problematic money order; it ends on the image of the postman handing a letter to Dieng, when a woman carrying a baby on her back comes in and interrupts them to expose the origins of her misfortunes, asking for help.