Ilongo Fritz: Book Review: The Four Pillars of Time by Ilongo Fritz Ngale

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Reviewed by Athanasius Ako Ayuk, PhD - Lecturer, ENS, University of Yaounde 1

Mr. Ilongo's novel, The Four Pillars of Time, has come as a welcome addition to the burgeoning Anglophone Cameroonian writing landscape. Anglophone Cameroon writing has grown significantly over the past two decades. Over this time, it has developed in its vision of human experience in general and the state of Cameroon in particular. In its attempt to capture and render socio-political convulsions of the state, it has shown its capacity to develop in technique and grow in theme. It is precisely in this regard that Ilongo's novel is a significant addition to this growing literary tradition.

Significant not just because it continues with the perennial commonplace themes of sociopolitical evolution, but because it edges out a new angle in terms of technique, which within the context of Anglophone Cameroon writing, is to say the least innovative. Put differently, The Four Pillars of Time heralds the birth of a new technical innovation in the Cameroon Anglophone novel.

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March 2007