"I am a dog," the narrator of Patrice Nganang's novel plainly informs us. As such, he has learned not to expect too much from life. He can, however, observe the life around him--in his case the impoverished but dynamic Cameroon of the early 1990s, a time known as "les annees de braise" (the smoldering years). When he isn't limited by the length of his master's leash, the perceptive, even ironic, Mboudjak wanders the streets of Yaounde, a capital city caught in the throes of social and political change. Only partly understanding the words spoken around him (the other dogs are as unreliable as the humans), Mboudjak relates an experience that not only evokes the wildly diverse language of the streets--a heady brew of French, Pidgin English, the indigenous Medumba, and the urban slang Camfranglais--but also reflects the elusiveness of meaning in politically uncertain times. Mboudjak is not alone in his confusion or in his hardship. The blows he receives from humans and the mocking laughter of other dogs are indicative of a larger pattern of abuse that indicts the ruling regime.

Despite its unflinching depiction of a seething, turbulent society, "Dog Days" is not a somber story; it is propelled by the humor that is Mboudjak's greatest survival tool, and even by a certain optimism. In the vibrantly chaotic marketplaces, in the bustling energy of Massa Yo's bar, and in the escalating political demonstrations, a brighter future for Cameroon can be glimpsed. This story told by a canine everyman offers something for any reader interested in freedom withheld and the early stirrings that will someday win it back.

In Cameroon in 1931, Sara is taken from her family and brought to Mount Pleasant as a gift for Sultan Njoya, the Bamum leader cast into exile by French colonialists, when she is just nine years old. Sara's story takes an unexpected turn when she is recognised by Bertha, the slave in charge of training Njoya's brides, as Nebu, the son she lost tragically years before. In her new life as a boy, she bears witness to the world of Sultan Njoya - a magical yet declining place of artistic and intellectual minds. Seven decades later, a student returns home to Cameroon to research the place it once was, and she finds Sara, silent for decades, ready to tell her story. In her serpentine tale, a lost kingdom lives again in the compromised intersection between flawed memory, tangled fiction, and faintly discernible truth. The award-winning novelist Patrice Nganang's lyrical and majestic Mount Pleasant is a resurrection of the world of early-twentieth-century Cameroon and an elegy for the men and women swept up in the forces of colonisation. For readers of Maaza Mengiste and Taiye Selasi.