Bearing Witness

Description

Bearing Witness. Poems from a Land in Turmoil is a poetic response to the devastating Anglophone Crisis/Ambazonian Conflict in Cameroon that has killed thousands of children, women and men, displaced over half a million people and left hundreds of communities in ruins. The poems in this volume capture an all-encompassing landscape marked by alienation, despair, displacement, loss, anger, trauma, as well as courage, hope, heroism, justice and resilience. These poems also engender psychic healing which has the potential of turning victims into survivors. With over 100 poems by 73 poets—seasoned and emerging, old and young, men and women—this collection is not only a guidepost of collective memory, but also the definitive literary work of this period in Cameroon’s checkered history.

Praise for “Bearing Witness”

“A fervent collection of poems that capture the anguish, resilience and hopes of a people determined to overcome.”
­— Imbolo Mbue, author of the New York Times best seller “Behold the Dreamers,” winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

Bearing Witness. Poems from a Land in Turmoil is the record of a people’s collective response to horrendous violence, injustice, and inhumanity. In a highly passionate and elegiac tone, these poets testify in poetic images the violence inflicted on the people of Anglophone Cameroon. Joyce Ashuntantang and Dibussi Tande have done a marvelous job in bringing together these anguished voices against inhumanity in Cameroon. This anthology is a major contribution to African conflict literature.
— Tanure Ojaide, Frank Porter Graham Professor, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte