The Amputated Memory
Werewere Liking The Feminist Press, 445pp, £21.50
A giant in the world of African arts, Werewere Liking is a painter, playwright, writer and film-maker known for a postmodern style of labyrinthine prose often reminiscent of surrealist automatism. In this, her fifth novel, Cameroon is unnamed but easily recognisable as the setting for an elderly woman’s celebration of female strength.
Aged 75, Halla Njockè embarks upon an epic personal journey of reconstructing memories, from childhood traumas involving a sexually abusive father to the community traumas of a small village during colonial expansion. Giving voice to the silence – hers and her community’s – Halla weaves the individual with the collective, the personal with the political, her own history with that of the anti-colonial struggle and its female militants.
The initial stream-of-consciousness style delicately yet vividly mimics the emotional reconstruction of events buried in an elderly woman’s mind. Unfortunately, the vibrancy is not maintained; the second half of the novel turns into a long-winded, meandering interior monologue. Nevertheless, Liking’s complex and nuanced prose explores memory, history and the female condition with characteristic insight, warmth and respect.
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