Literature

A Review of When the Sun turns Red: Women’s Tears from a Land in Despair Yaah Maggie Kilo, PhD In the tradition of outpouring of emotions through all the expressions

As a voracious reader interacting with authors and the contexts of their works, you will certainly agree that it is a literary exercise in futility to attempt to completely vanish a writer from their works in an attempt to achieve objectivity. Like a biological child that bears its parents’ DNA as permanent mark of identity and relationship to its source, a writer’s output bears prints of their convictions, elements of their lived or be-lived experiences, and characteristics of their persuasions on a given subject matter. This is the truth that I’m confronted with when I finally get to read Gil Ndi-Shang’s recently published short story anthology, “The Radio and Other Stories”.

Paradise of Love and Pain is an excellent first novel that explores the extent to which sexual promiscuity and marital infidelity disrupt the life of Cameroonian families bringing untold suffering to children and parents alike. The main plot of the novel hinges on the actions of a wealthy and free-spirited woman who poisons her husband, Mr. Peng, to indulge her sexual appetite with her selfish and arrogant boyfriend, Tom. The plot is further complicated by Lydia’s affair with her young Pastor which results in the birth of a son, whom Tom thought was his.