Follow the full interview between our reporter in Cameroon, Walter Nana Wilson, and Prof. Juliana Nfah-Abbenyi.

AfricaNews: What brings you to Cameroon?

Makuchi: I came visiting my family and to support the EduArt vision in Cameroon by Dr. Joyce Ashutantang. She asked me to do a workshop with emerging writers and those ready to publish. I am glad for the invitation given to me and I did it with all my heart.

AfricaNews: What did you tell the budding writers?

Makuchi: We talked about the reasons for writing, for those who are not writing yet, why do they want to write? We had an open conversation. If you do not know why and what to write, then a workshop on writing will not be helpful. We also talked about editing, revising your work, how to receive criticisms of your work – are you defensive about it? Or are you grateful that someone took off time, read your work and is ready to give you feedback. We discussed the issues that go with the craft of writing and how to proceed with them. People have to learn that editing, a critique and revision are very good things in the process of writing.

[bAfricaNews: ]You are amongst the Cameroonian intelligentsia in the Diaspora but not known at home. Where have you been?~~~~[/b]

Makuchi: I have been around the world. I began my varsity studies at the University of Yaounde, where I had a Doctorat d’Etat, from there I taught at Government High School, GHS, Limbe, and later moved to Canada and subsequently to the US. I left Cameroon in 1988 to Canada, where I studied Comparative Literature at the University of Magill in Montreal. From Montreal, I moved to the US for a teaching job. I have been in the US since 1994 and teaching in universities.

AfricaNews: What’s your specialty?

Makuchi: I am into post-colonial literatures, gender and creative writings. I have published three books; Gender In African Women’s Writings: Identity, Sexuality & Difference, this is a well-known and groundbreaking book. For the first time an African critic used gender as a category of analysis to look at African literature. No other book existed before the aforementioned. It is published by Indiana University Press.

The next is Your Madness Not Mind: Stories of Cameroon. It is a book of short stories, set in Cameroon and cover many topics; economy, women & gender issues, AIDS and my third book is The Sacred Door And Other Stories, with a foreword by Isidore Okpweho.

When I was in the University of Yaounde, I did oral literature at the Maïtrise, and haven grown up hearing these stories, from my mother all through and so in my teaching career across the US, I have been using folk tales to teach my students. People will ask me if I have a book of mind, hence, I was motivated to do The Sacred Door And Other Stories.

It was published two years ago and it is been used in high schools and universities across the US. I also have many articles, short stories published in books, journals and other creative magazines. I am a full professor at the state University of North Carolina and a Park Faculty Fellow for the 2013 Class.

AfricaNews: Who is a Park Faculty Fellow?

Makuchi: The Park scholarships at the University of North Carolina is given to some of the brightest and young American students in the four years that they come to the university. It is an all-paid scholarship. Each class that comes in has two Park Faculty scholars appointed by the Provost. I was appointed as a faculty scholar for the Park Fellows who will graduate in 2013. It is a huge deal to be appointed as a Park Faculty Scholar. You got to work with some of the brightest students in our university.


AfricaNews: Your books are internationally recognised but they are not known in Cameroon. Where is the missing link?

Makuchi: I do not know where the problem is, but I guess they are not available in Cameroon. Some varsity dons in Cameroon; University of Yaounde, University of Buea, know about my books, especially those who teach in the English, Women & Gender Studies and those in the Humanities Departments. However, they are not available in bookstores in Cameroon. My books are not sold here, I understand they are expensive and I cannot sell them myself, the publisher is Ohio University Press.

AfricaNews: How do you intend to bring the books down to the man in the streets in Cameroon?

Makuchi: It is not how I intend to bring the books in Cameroon, but how collaboration can be sealed between the publisher of the books in the US and another publisher in Cameroon. The US publisher has the copyrights for the books. That gives room for co-publication, which happens and it is authorised. Let a Cameroonian publisher liaise with the Ohio University Press.

There are other publishers in the UK, who sell to the European market and have been working closely with the Ohio University Press. They will need a partner publisher in Cameroon to facilitate distribution and sales of my books. It is not me to do that.

[bAfricaNews: ]Prof. Juliana Nfah-Abbenyi is the person behind the pen name MAKUCHI, why the cloak?~~~~~[/b]

Makuchi: I am not cloaking. If you look at all of my scholarly publications, they are published; Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi. But for fiction, I wanted Makuchi only. I wanted a pen name because what I do in my scholarly works and what I do in my fiction, they are not same. They feed up each other beautifully.

But there are some things that Juliana does in scholarly works that Makuchi will not do in fiction. The scholarly works must be conventional, while in fiction, Makuchi will not necessarily respect the conventions of writing. There is a kind of freedom that Makuchi has with creative writings, which is sometimes censored in scholarly writings because there are rules in scholarly writings.

AfricaNews: How will you react to some observers who see you as one of the few English speaking Cameroonian writers to have been published by a recognisable international publisher?

Makuchi: Given that most of my works have been published by international publishers, I just see myself in that way. There is not much I can say about that. People will always label, so, I do not know what to say about it. Let them have it. I only know I am a Cameroonian writer, whose works have been published by international publishers, what should I add to that?

AfricaNews: How should other Cameroonian writers break the grounds to be published by other international publishers?

Makuchi: That’s a difficult question. Breaking into the publishing industries differs with people. In the US, a writer must have an agent who goes out to source for and proposes your work to publishers. That is your intermediary who sells your work(s) to publishers. I do not have an agent, I have never had one.

Mine happened in the sense that I kept writing, went to a conference for African-American Association of Writers in the late nineties and walked up to some publishers and told them I write fiction and I will love that you see and read my works.

I met a senior editor of Ohio University Press and told her, you publish a lot of African works but I have not seen your organisation publish fiction. “Will you be able to look at my works and do something now on fiction?” I asked her and she said yes. She gave me her contact details and asked me to send my works. That was it, I send them to her and now they have a series on publishing African writers.

Many African writers have come after me at the Ohio University Press. Before now, they have never published fiction from an African writer. Now, they publish a lot of African writers, especially in the area of scholarly books. So, Cameroonians should keep on writing. Whether they have published or not they should get on with writing. You never know when you will actually get published.

A writer will always want to write, hence get going with it. One writes because it is something they love. We all want to be published but they are people who might not be published, but it is no reason to stop writing. Writing itself is pleasurable. A published writer or not should never consider the time wasted. If you do not enjoy writing, don’t do it. If you are bitter about writing, then you feel forced and you will not enjoy it.

AfricaNews: What’s your appreciation of what is currently been published in Cameroon?

Makuchi: I have not read the most recent works that have come out, but I will say there is so much richness in what Cameroonians write about, in tune and happenings within the Cameroonian society.

Cameroonians are very involved in wanting to effect change, which I think is a great thing. We do need that. We need our writers to create other realities for us to aspire to. Many of the writers want to see a better society, a democratic and a society where the simplest things must not be difficult to achieve.

It is fiction, but it gives an avenue that we can look at and say we can get there.
People are looking at the nation in a holistic manner and not as English speaking Cameroonians, as people in the nation. That is how we can generate the change we need. English speaking Cameroonians are not an isolated item in the country; they are part and parcel of the nation. That is what I like in our fiction now. It is part of the nation building.