Foreword: the Anglophone problem as seen through the eyes of some of Cameroon’s most prominent veteran and emerging scholars

Abstract

This essay serves as a foreword to the special issue guest-edited by Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi and Gilbert Doho and defines the context in which four veteran scholars and three emerging ones came together for the working conference “The Fragmented Nation or the Anglophone-Francophone Problem in Cameroon” held at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, USA, on March 1, 2019. The foreword describes briefly the work of each participant who further developed their arguments for this special edition of JALA and cites some of the profound remarks noted during the discussions that day.

Keywords:

• Cameroon
• Anglophone-Francophone
• literature
• history
• women’s and gender studies
• Biya
• rebellion
• colonization
• dictatorship

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The Inamori Center website is located at https://case.edu/inamori/about-center/center-mission.

2 Quotes from the presenters were recorded by me in notes taken throughout the conference.

3 Biya’s speech can be found online at https://www.prc.cm/en/news/speeches-of-the-president/3777-the-head-of-state-s-message-to-the-nation-10-sept-2019.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cheryl Toman

Cheryl Toman is the Ruth Mulhauser Professor of French, Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, and Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Case Western Reserve University. Toman’s research focuses on Francophone women writers from Cameroon and Gabon. She is the author of Women Writers of Gabon: Literature and Herstory and Contemporary Matriarchies in Cameroonian Francophone Literature. She has also published critical editions of translations including Thérèse Kuoh-Moukoury’s Essential Encounters and Justine Mintsa’s Awu’s Story. Her essays appear in journals such as Research in African Literatures, Women’s Studies International Forum, Women in French, Meridians, and Feminist Studies among others.