The literature of Cameroon
Cameroon is a west-African nation, its modern territory including former British and French colonies. Education is conducted in French and English, and, although French is dominant, there is a substantial body of local English-language literature. The EU-funded CAMLIT (Perpetuating Cameroon Anglophone literature: a critical reading of selected works) project aimed to critically analyse the works of 18 Anglophone writers. Analyses included various sociocultural, economic, and political aspects of the works that distinguish Cameroon Anglophone Literature from Cameroon Literature of English Expression. The genre list included drama, poetry, and prose. A further goal involved relating the Cameroon corpus to African and European literature. The project met all its objectives. Main outcomes included a completed monograph manuscript, in addition to seven published and three forthcoming articles. The publications demonstrated that Cameroon Anglophone literature is postcolonial, and made significant contributions to contemporary local issues. Research introduced new critical approaches to analysis of a wider variety of texts. Such approaches included numerous sociocultural elements, including histiography, psychology, language and philosophy. CAMLIT demonstrated the worth of Cameroon's English literature, and that the corpus contributes to trans-cultural, social and political awareness. The work helps foster international research excellence and expansion.
Keywords
Cameroon, Anglophone language, literature, critical, sociocultural