A modern-day Things Fall Apart, The Amputated Memory explores the ways in which an African woman's memory preserves, and strategically forgets, moments in her tumultuous past as well as the cultural past of her country, in the hopes of making a healthier future possible. Pinned between the political ambitions of her philandering father, the colonial and global influences of encroaching and exploitative governments, and the traditions of her Cameroon village, Halla Njokè recalls childhood traumas and reconstructs forgotten experiences to reclaim her sense of self.
"Werewere Liking's novel or 'chant-roman' is a truly remarkable achievement illustrating the potential of African literature to renew and regenerate its forms. Through innovative and fully successful use of traditional songs, praise-naming, lullaby, letters and myth, the novel is unique in its form."
The 25th Noma Award for Publishing in Africa
"A fascinating text by a major African woman writer, poet, performer, celebrating female strength, the joy and pain of being a woman. Resonantly titled, a must read for students and scholars of African and postcolonial literature, and of or general readers of classic and world fiction."
Ketu H. Katrak, University of California, Irvine, author of Politics of the Female Body: P
"Weaving together history and memory, Liking recaptures the Cameroonian anticolonial resistance movement in the late fifties. And she does so very compellingly through women who have refused to remain victims and who heal both their public and personal trauma."
Odile Cazenave, Boston University, author of A New Generation of African Writers in Paris
