Description

This study is the first critical examination of the novels of Linus T. Asong, a sharp, compelling, and brutally insightful storyteller, sometimes comical yet with a knack for the distraught, disturbing, and macabre in his throbbing capture and portrayal of society as it functions or as it fails to function. Asong’s novels bring to the fore an unexpected enormous array of characters whose physical appearances and habits are depictions made concrete by potent imagistic words deployed not only to evoke vividness and plausibility, but more specifically to peek into the soul and mental uprightness of persons and society. Hence, they demonstrate the response of the oppressed, exploited, and abused in the face of dysfunctionality, social, and cultural violations and deviations. In this light, the novels are revealed to serve both as testimonies and critiques of the times in which Asong lived. This study, therefore, offers insights into one of the most prolific novelists of Southern Cameroons origins, as well as modern trends in African literature.