Clash of Egos

With this roller-coaster novella, Berinyuy delves into the inter-communal memories of three ethnic groups - Nos, Kou and Membia - which share a related migration history but are set apart by internecine politics, intransigent egos and the futile quest for supremacy. The narrative navigates with stealth and dexterity between individual conundrum and collective struggle, combining allegorical narrative technique with an indigenised form of the detective novel to underscore the importance of mutual acceptance, socio-cultural equality and shared humanity.＂

Dr. Gilbert Shang Ndi, University of Bayreuth.

CLASH OF EGOS replicates the negative consequences of the reign and lives of three leaders in the fictional Tikak clan for failing to walk in the footsteps of their predecessors. Things start falling apart in the hitherto united clan when the trio of excessively proud younger generation of fons of Kou, Nos and Membia take to party-politics thereby abandoning their ancestral sacred values in the quest for power, wealth and influence. This provokes the wrath of the gods who strike them with virtual, auditory and vocal impairments. As a recall that the African culture is alive and functional, it takes only the intervention of the Tikak gods through the neglected supreme leader of the clan at Nkim to restore the health of the wayward proud fons. Besides the impressive description of the mores and oral tradition of the people of the grass field of Cameroon, the story hinges on other social ills like adultery and religious hypocrisy as a supposed popular catholic celibate priest is caught red handed in a sexual affair with a front line Christian. The story is replete with the author’s characteristic humour and every day Cameroonian idiom. Another valuable contribution to Cameroon Anglophone postcolonial literature.

Dr. Innocent Ettia Meh, The University of Bertoua, Cameroon