The impatient ones - Djaïli Amadou Amal
"Patience, my daughters! Munyal! Such is the only value of marriage and life." In the north of Cameroon, within the rich Fulani and Muslim families, patience is the cardinal virtue taught to future wives. Woe to the one who dares to contradict the will of Allah! Within the walls of the concessions, where polygamous rivalry and domestic violence reign, Cameroonian society condemns these women to silence. But it is also there that destinies intertwine. Ramla, torn from her first love; Safira, confronted with the arrival of a second wife; Hindu, forcibly married to her cousin: each dreams of freeing herself from her condition. How far will they go to free themselves?
288 pages
Author: Djaïli Amadou Amal
Nationality: Cameroon
Born in: Maroua, Diamaré, 1975
Biography:
Djaïli Amadou Amal is a French-speaking Cameroonian feminist activist and author.
She is the daughter of a Cameroonian father and an Egyptian mother.
Married at seventeen in a forced marriage, she experienced what makes life difficult for women in the Sahel. In 1998, Djaïli Amadou Amal managed to leave this man after 5 years of living together.
Ten years and a second marriage later, she left a second husband, who was violent, to settle in Yaoundé. At the time of the break-up, he kidnapped her two daughters to punish her.
Djaïli Amadou Amal does not give up. The one who dreamed of being a journalist works thanks to her BTS in management, sells her jewelry, buys a computer, a table, a chair and starts writing.
Her first novel "Walaande, the art of sharing a husband", published in 2010, brought her immediate fame. The Jury Prize of the Prince de Claus Foundation in Amsterdam, obtained immediately after its publication, led to the book being translated into Arabic and distributed in the Maghreb and Middle Eastern countries.
Her second novel, "Mistiriijo, the soul eater", published in 2013, confirms the novelist's talent. Her third novel, "Munyal, the tears of patience", was published in September 2017, definitively ranking her among the sure values of African literature.
In March 2019, the book honored the writer with the 2019 Pan-African Press Prize for Literature, which was awarded to her at the Paris Livre fair. Two months later, she was the winner of the 1st Orange Book Prize in Africa.
The writer signs her entry into the French publishing house Anne Carrière/Emmanuelle Collas which publishes her in 2020. The editor wants to rework the text of "Munyal". It appears in September 2020 under the title "Les Impatientes", is part of the first selection of the 2020 Goncourt Prize and will finally obtain the Goncourt des lycéens prize on December 2, 2020 and more recently Cœur du Sahel from Éditions Emmanuelle Collas.
During the year 2024, a new book by Djaïli Amadou Amal "The King's Harem" was published and also enjoyed success, just like the other works of this talented writer.
Djaili Amadou Amal lives in Douala with her husband, Hamadou Baba, an engineer and also a writer under the pseudonym Badiadji Horrétowdo.
Source: www.babelio.com