Martin Jumbam

CAMWREAD Celebrates the Life and Works of Kenjo Jumbam

On January 26, 2006, CAMWREAD (Association of Cameroon Writers and Readers) organized a celebration of the life and Works of Kenjo wan Jumbam at the Marriott Hotel in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA.

The event started at 7:00 pm with attendance peaking at about 150 people. Poems were read in memory of Pa Kenjo Jumbam. Excepts from Pa Kenjo Jumbams books were read and analyzed by Camread members.

A panel discussed Pa Jumbam's works and situated him in Anglophone Cameroon, Cameroon as a whole and Africa. These presentations were interspersed with traditional dances.

the Bui Family Union was associated to the event and performed two traditional dances (Toh [women's dance] and Kikum).

The event ended at 10:30 with a word of appreciation from Amosa Jumbam on behalf of the family and an auction of 4 copies of The Whiteman of God."

The next three postings are a sample of the presentations made during the celebration.

Kenjo Jumbam - The father we knew, but did not know

By JK Bannavti

[Paper presented at the CAMWREAD (Association of Cameroon Writers and Readers) Celebration of the Life and Works of Kenjo wan Jumbam at the Marriott Hotel in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA, on January 26, 2006]

This is not an easy task for me because I have to comment about someone so renowned, someone whose birthplace is so close to mine, and someone I have always had great respect for. As a boy growing up in Sob, just about three and a half miles from Nkar, the birthplace of Kenjo wan Jumbam, I always looked at Baáh Jumbam (that is how we called him) with admiration and awe, first because of his feat of numerous writings, and second because he was a well educated baáh (father).

Kenjo Jumbam: Promoter of Nso Identity

By Dr. Elias Wirba

Introduction: an incident!

We had a Bui Family Union meeting in New Jersey some 5 or so years ago. I was still single at the time and had come to the meeting feeling very good about myself.  As a single man I was always on the lookout for a potential life-long partner.  That evening, I was particularly pleased when I realized that there were quite a few single women at the meeting. I walked into the room and immediately went round the room, greeting everybody with a handshake and doing my best to make an impression.  After this, I sat down, and proceeded to comment on points raised in the previous meetings minutes, doing my best to smile whenever the opportunity arose.

The Bridge [BFU-USA Tribute to Kenjo wan Jumbam]

By JK Bannavti

The skies are dark
The lights are out
And we are not fast
But we trot and shout
Sure of foot
Sure of road

Wind rustles the bush
Night birds clatter afar
At the sound of our foot
Even the shriek from the trap
Sure of foot we are
Sure of road we are

Where will the New Deal intellectual/ Writer Stand at the Trumpet of Reckoning?

(To the memory of Kenjo wa Jumbam, playwright, educationist and novelist, who died in his sleep on 12 December, 2005)

By BATE BESONG

Brahmins of our higher institutions of learning have not provided the elixir that would redeem our inchoate democracy from its prolonged, socio- economic death sleep, and, political quagmire. This refusal to turn history into a useful dialogue has given rise to the perverted culture of glorification of a parasitic, comprador bourgeois ruling class, as well as, the encrustation of a pleasing propaganda image of the Establishment.

In Moving the Center: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms (1993), Ngugi wa Thiong’O has pointed out that ‘One can only meaningfully say that there are two types of writers in Kenya today. They are the official writers, or officially approved writers, and the unofficial ones, that is those who are not accepted by the government’ (31). Nowhere could this assertion be so provocatively relevant, especially, in the last two and a half decades or so, than at our state universities which are the breeding ground for our writers, technocrats, lawgivers, intellectuals etc.

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Pray with Open Eyes: A Tribute to Kenjo wan-Jumban

By Souliy wan-NTani

There has been a large outpouring of sympathy and grief on the passing of the griot, raconteur, social thinker, and keeper of our collective memory, the Gentle and Subtle One - Kenjo wan-Jumbam. I must admit, I have been in DENIAL that Kenjo wan-Jumbam is really gone in the flesh, but today the sad news has begun finally to trickle into my system. Now, I feel the presence of his absence and would like to offer the following tribute in his honor.(You would all pardon me, for I am a slow burner!).

Obituary: Celebrated Cameroonian Writer Kenjo wan Jumbam is Dead

On December 12, 2005, my brother, Kenjo Jumbam left this world for a much better place. I am at a loss to describe what I feel at this time. However, when the pain and anguish caused by my brother's untimely death subsides, I will pay him a befitting tribute. In the meantime, I will leave you with a beautiful eulogy written by Dr. Joyce Ashutangtang Abunaw.

Martin K Jumbam.

Book Review: The White Man of God by Kenjo Jumbam

By Annie Gagiano

The Cameroonian novelist Kenjo Jumbam is not as well known as his work merits — in particular, his wry account of the cultural-religious clash in the mind of a young boy, Tansa , set in the vicinity of Bamenda in the Cameroon: the novel called The White Man of God (1980).

The work has a comic flavour and is narrated with disarming candour, although it is not, finally, funny — many incidents have biting satirical undertones or leave a feeling of desolate sadness.