Recently, the Langaa Research and Publishing Common Initiative Group in Bamenda has republished Francis Nyamnjoh’s first novel Mind Searching (2007 [1991]). After having read A Nose for Money (2006) which came with lightning and thunder, Mind Searching entered my mind as a thought provoking but gentle breath of air. The central theme in the two novels is the perverse functioning of the political system and its effects on the man in the street, in Mind Searching explicitly set in Cameroon, in ...read more
Recently, the Langaa Research and Publishing Common Initiative Group in Bamenda has republished Francis Nyamnjoh’s first novel Mind Searching (2007 [1991]). After having read A Nose for Money (2006) which came with lightning and thunder, Mind Searching entered my mind as a thought provoking but gentle breath of air. The central theme in the two novels is the perverse functioning of the political system and its effects on the man in the street, in Mind Searching explicitly set in Cameroon, in A Nose For Money in the fictional Mimboland, a mirror of Nyamnjoh’s beloved and reviled Cameroon. Where the protagonist of Mind Searching, Judascious Fanda Yanda, is presented as a more or less virtuous man in most part of the book, Prospère, the protagonist of the second novel, is far more opportunistic right from the start. Although the idea that greed is stronger than anything else prevails in both novels, it is worked out in much more detail in A Nose for Money.
MIND SEARCHING
As the title Mind Searching suggests, the reader is presented with the detailed river of thoughts of Judascious Fanda Yanda. He is a young man, a pious Christian, living in Briqueterie, a poor neighbourhood of the capital. One of the persons who gives him a lot of food for thought is the very prosperous Honourable Vice Minister, who attends the same church as he does. Judascious Fanda Yanda knows that this minister rends nocturnal visits to a fortune teller behind his shack. When there is a baptism feast at the residence of the minister, Judascious Fanda Yanda decides to “capitalise” upon the piece of knowledge that he has (p.106) by telling the minister he knows all about his secret visits. It appears that this is the key to a better life, providing Judascious Fanda Yanda an entrance to the world of the well-to-do-people: It so happens that the Honourable V.M. gives him a job as his Private Secretary in exchange for keeping the secret. like At the end of the story, Judascious Fanda Yanda can be considered a successful young man, who has moved from the shacks of the neighbourhood Briqueterie to the upper-class quarter of Bastos.
