« June 2006 | Main | August 2006 »
By Martin Jumbam
In this last but one part of his interview on Cameroonian and African creative writing, Professor Abioseh Michael Porter talks, among other things, about the different generations of African writers and points to the Internet as a forum that can foster creative writing in Africa. 
By Martin Jumbam
In the fifth part of his interview, Professor Porter talks about the Fonlon-Nichols Prize, which the African Literature Association (ALA) created to reward excellence in African creative writing. He tells us why the ALA decided to jointly honour Dr. 
Bernard Nsokika Fonlon and retired VOA journalist, Lee Nichols, by naming this literary award after them.
By Martin Jumbam
In the Fourth Part of his interview, Professor Porter talks about the role non-Cameroonian critics, like himself, have played in the promotion of Cameroonian literature. The North American-based African Literature Association (ALA) and its Bulletin, the ALA Bulletin, of which Professor Porter is the Editor, have been very instrumental, not only in promoting Cameroonian, and other African literatures, but also in their outspoken 
defence of human rights in Africa, wherever such rights are trampled upon. Their voice was heard loud and clear, for example, when the Abacha dictatorship in Nigeria murdered the human rights activist and playwright Ken Saro Wiwa in 1995. Excerpts.
In Part Three of his interview on Cameroonian literature, Professor Abioseh Michael Porter, laments the demise of one of Dr. Fonlon’s literary legacies: the internationally renowned magazine Abbia, whose motto, which was so dear to Dr. Fonlon, was “Not merely to recount what has been, but to share in moulding what should be”. Fonlon himself once wrote that “for one reason or another, by an inexorable law of nature, the present team of Abbia must cede place, by and by, to another and younger.”
By Martin Jumbam.
In Part Two of this interview, Professor Abioseh Porter talks about his encounters in Cameroon, focusing particular attention on Dr. Bernard Nsokika Fonlon, an outstanding 
intellectual, who dominated the Cameroonian intellectual and political scenes for several decades. Even though he had political and material power within easy reach, Fonlon emerged from it totally unstained by waves of corruption scandals that have been the hallmark of our country from its inception. Cameroon recently earned for itself, on two successive occasions, the unenviable title of the “most corrupt country in the world.” That came several decades after Fonlon, who passed on in 1986. Excerpts.
By Martin Jumbam
Professor Abioseh Michael Porter is the present head of English and Philosophy Department at Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Born and bred in Sierra Leone, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in French and English and a Diploma in Education from Fourah Bay College in Freetown, Sierra Leone. He later gained admission into the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, graduating with a Master of Arts Degree and a Doctorate in Comparative Literature with his research focusing on African literature.
He has, for the past well over twenty years, been teaching comparative literature in various North American universities. He is also the Editor of the North American-based African Literature Association (ALA) Bulletin, soon to be renamed JALA--The Journal of the African Literature Association. The ALA Bulletin has done much to promote African literatures, not only in North America, but throughout the world. One of the ALA’s outstanding achievements has been the creation of the Fonlon-Nichols Award to honour African writers.
Recent Comments