Hardcover Edition
ISBN: 9781558615557
Publication Date: 11-01-2007

Available as an ebook on:
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Translated by Marjolijn de Jager
Afterword by Michelle Mielly

“An expansive, eclectic, and innovative novel.” —Women's Review of Books

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. Winner of the Noma Award—previous honorees include Mamphela Ramphele, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Ken Saro-Wiwa—The Amputated Memory was called by the Noma jury “a truly remarkable achievement . . . a deeply felt presentation of the female condition in Africa; and a celebration of women as the country’s memory.”

"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, author of Politics of the Female Body: Postcolonial Women Writers of the Third World

“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

“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, author of A New Generation of African Writers in Paris

"Fascinating. . . Liking's writing can be gorgeously lyrical and full of wisdom and humor . . . evoking a musical flow from one chapter to the next." —MultiCultural Review

"Liking's grand goal—creating a literary purgative meant to heal Africa—results in an expansive, eclectic, and innovative novel." —Women's Review of Books