Your Madness, Not Mine: Stories From Cameroon by Juliana Makuchi

"Women's writing in Cameroon has so far been dominated by Francophone writers. The short stories in this collection represent the yearnings and vision of an Anglophone woman, who writes both as a Cameroonian and as a woman whose life has been shaped by the minority status her people occupy within the nation-state."

Your Madness, Not Mine is a book of short stories written by Juliana Makuchi (1999). The stories explore the lives of women in modern Cameroon and the trials they face as they struggle for survival and empowerment in postcolonial Cameroon. The struggles come both from without and from within as the traditional patriarchal society continues to oppress them physically, and their minority status in their nation state oppresses them socially. The stories are often heartbreaking and intense. Makuchi writes with a rebellious force determined to bring the inequities faced by the women of Cameroon to the surface. In an interview Makuchi states "I am interested in looking at the people who were forgotten -- especially the women and children, and how they empower themselves."

About the Author
Makuchi is professor of English and Comparative Literature at North Carolina State University, Raleigh.