By Martin Jumbam
INTRODUCTION
From July 29 through August 3, 1985, the then University Centre for Health Sciences, the School of Medicine of the University of Yaounde, more commonly referred to by its French acronym “CUSS,” organised a seminar entitled “National Seminar on Sterility” in Yaounde.
A cursory glance at the list of participants revealed an impressive array of disciplines that had come together to find solutions to one of those paradoxes developing countries, like Cameroon, face: on the one hand, a disturbing explosion in the population growth rate, and, on the other hand, pockets of sterility in certain parts of the country which our pro-natalist government views with grave concern.
Participating in that seminar were medical practitioners, economists, demographers, theologians, journalists and numerous other observers from all walks of life – a clear indication that sterility (the inability to produce offspring) is far from being the preserve of the medical sciences. However, men and women of letters – novelists, poets, dramatists, literary critics, etc. --- were, to borrow an already over-fondled expression, conspicuous by their absence.
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