Showing results by author "Janvier Chouteu" in All Categories

Just before Tatiana sets off to start a new life of deprivation, sacrifice, and sanctity, her insightful uncle helps her grapple with the meaning of life and come to terms with a world where people betray over a fickle, and where the quest for self-gratification supersedes the desire to live a divine purpose. “Hunger Fire” sequentially follows “The Grandmother': and Perfect Love” and precedes “The Fire and Ice Legend” in the short story collection entitled “Me Before Them”.

As a German colony from 1884-1916, Kamerun was called "The African Pearl" for its human and material potential, and for its strategic position in Africa. The defeat of Germany in the First World War and the partition of the colony into British Cameroons and French Cameroon did not diminish the area's outsize role in the political and economic evolution of the continent. So, the quest by the land's civic nationalists to reunite the British-controlled and French-controlled territories and make Cameroon independent, raised concerns among the colonialists in Britain and France, who planned to ...

Ketcha, a variously-gifted man stubbornly pursues a hazy path in life that brings only moments of joy and satisfaction, but no happiness. Over time, life becomes grim for him. It is as if there is no correlation between his thoughts, feelings and actions. He craves love and finds it more frequently than most men, but he can’t help acting against those who love him. He brings them joy, and then grief, even as he tries not to. His moments of satisfaction never transform into happiness as a loss he can’t get over haunts his present, seeming to doom him forever. Ketcha’s dedicated brother...

Dubbed by many pundits as “The Most Stupid War in the World,” the Ukraine conflict is one that hardly anyone saw coming back in 2010. However, it is close to a decade old already. In this conflict in the evenly divided Ukraine, brinkmanship by the local players in the country, by the West that wants to drag Ukraine into its orbit, and by Russia that fears losing Ukraine and its security in the process, is the norm. At the same time, the world watches in a seemingly helpless manner as Ukraine gets torn apart at the seams. Most of the governments in the West blame Russia for instigating ...

Marrying Sancho, the love of her life, is enough reason for Tatiana to forgo a desire to serve The Lord. So, the last day of their honeymoon in the exotic Windward and Leeward Caribbean islands of the Lesser Antilles is expected to be special. However, a terrorist attack calls into question this young couple's idyllic honeymoon. Suddenly Tatiana and Sancho find themselves in an atmosphere where love also entails killing for a set of beliefs. An escape from the reality of their world is all that Tatiana seeks. And she is determined to take Sancho with him. "The Sweetest Madness" comes before...

A teenage girl who is about to take a leap of faith seeks the counsel of his insightful uncle. But all he can provide are insights. Does a journey that takes her to the heart of altruism, charity and solidarity, bigotry, racism, and divine providence provide the guidelines that can help her come to terms with her destiny? Does his insightful hand-in-hand lead provide the answers she needs? “Fateful Ties” proceeds “The Fire and Ice Legend”, and precedes “The Sweetest Madness” in the short stories collection entitled “Me Before Them”.

In a world where attitudes and behaviors that were taboo not long ago are now acceptable in a world where the future is frightening to many, we appear to be the helpless onlookers of a process we have no control over. So, finding out that there are underlying efforts by governments, the media, or private groups to influence particular attitudes and social behaviors on a large scale, for the purpose of producing desired results or certain characteristics in particular segments of the population, would be shocking to many people. It is even more shocking when the social engineers are ...

The 2016 Presidential election will be remembered for ages not only for producing the biggest upset in the history of American politics, but also for the colorfulness of the primaries of both the Democratic and the Republican parties. When Bernie Sanders, the little-known independent senator from small state Vermont boldly stated that he was a Democratic Socialist, and then began his race for the White House as a Democratic Party candidate, hardly anyone took him seriously. After all, he was up against the entire Democratic Party establishment and their favored candidate Hillary Clinton. ...

Hans Wette Heinrich's world turns upside down when Nazi Germany promulgates the Nuremberg Laws and he is compelled to seek sanctuary in Africa. His father, new African family, and childhood friend help him turn his haven into a new home. However, he quickly learns that his role as the first son of an African legend comes at a price as he tames his impulses and comes to terms with the reality of his new world beyond his family. Even as he fosters a noble dream that is haunted by nightmares, and even as he tries to live with the ghosts lurking around a legacy that is too big to inherit, he ...

This insightful account serves as an effective guide in understanding the fundamental mentalities that abound in our world and in knowing the various ways that they combine in the regulation of activities in our different societies. We understand how the degree of our humanization and the influence that it has on our intellect and intuitive insight is determined by the conditional and unconditional instincts we develop.Imagine how judging from a man’s belief system, perception of the world around him, plans, actions and self-restraints, we can determine his propensity for good or evil, ...

In this hilarious but insightful tall tale of how God gave Mankind the Ten Commandments through his prophet Moses and the ordeals that Moses went through to make humans accept it, Janvier Chouteu-Chando provides angles that are educative, hilarious and borderline offensive at the same time. However, the historical contexts of these insights reveal a side of our world that is difficult to confront.

For a people that lost more than half a million lives in a liberation struggle for the independence and reunification of their country yet failed to shake off the oppressive external forces who allowed self-rule and reunification of British Cameroons and former French Cameroun but put their puppets in power in a so-called independent Cameroon, this country known as “Africa in Miniature” is an Orwellian reality. It is hard for a non-Cameroonian mind to imagine that there are tidy solutions or pithy fixes to the big challenges in overcoming the reactionary forces responsible for ...

Jeremiah Nana spends an enriching day with two sages and gets an insight into a fascinating people. The experience leaves him with more questions than answers. Does the action of a fake reflect the centuries-old tradition of a people whose meaning of life revolves around an icon that suffers from deception? The custodians of a legacy and a bright-eyed soul seek an answer to that riddle. "Ngoko's Folly" is sequentially after "The Usurper", and precedes "The Verdict of Hades" in the collection of short stories entitled "The Usurper: and Other Stories".

Me Before Them is a collection of exquisite short stories that dispassionately explore life’s temperaments through characters and their actions that give us a better understanding of the enemies of peace―ambition, anger, avarice, envy, and pride―within us. In Dark Shades, a man embraces childlike trust again by baring his soul to his family and exorcising the ghosts haunting him; alas finding out that genuine happiness also comes with empathy and selfless giving. In The Grandmothers, brave matriarchs step in to whisk their grandchildren out of the labyrinths of desolation that their ...

Playing out as a scintillating story with unexpected twists, “The Girl on the Trail” explores the severe and overwhelming shock of discovering uncomfortable truths about those we look up to, the security of family, the joy and satisfaction of love, the devastation of betrayal and loss, and the comfort of loyalty in our lives. The teenage Tatiana is certain she has her future mapped out: She would find love when she becomes a young woman, she would live a loving life all through college, and she would marry the knight who would secure her heart. But then, her compromised mother shakes ...

A young king is desperately trying to hold his kingdom together in the backdrop of his diminishing powers owing to the influence of the new French colonial masters. He flexes his muscles and takes his sister out of her conjugal home by arrogating to himself the use of his traditional powers over the issue of the bride price. Her overzealous uncle with an overactive imagination challenges the new king in a French court, thereby highlighting a bizarre but insightful case of the clash of occidental and African cultures. The beleaguered princess finds herself at a crossroads and acts the best ...

In this tumultuous story of rugged characters who retain their zest for life, the postulation that ideas are like fire holds, as events prove that ideas can burn the world as well as illuminate it. So, when old man Joe battles his descendants in their conflicting journeys through life, he does so in a manner that reveals man's innate goodness. However, by doing so, he is not advocating for humanity alone. In a world where it is increasingly relevant for the body to be in harmony with the mind, spirit, and soul, "Dark Shades" provides insights into the nature of a serene society and ...

When Lois Wyse wrote that “A mother becomes a true grandmother the day she stops noticing the terrible things her children do because she is so enchanted with the wonderful things her grandchildren do.”, she had no idea her words could be expatiated upon and applied in real life. But that is the case in “THE GRANDMOTHERS: and Perfect Love “, an extraordinary story of the influence of three remarkable grandmothers in the lives of their grandchildren, and their uphill battle to mitigate the negative influences of their irresponsible children. Janvier Chouteu-Chando takes the reader ...

When the debased Njoumen seeks sanctuary in his grandfather's royal palace, her number one concern is her mental health. As she glosses in her recovered status as a princess and unleashes the full force of her free-spiritedness, her unfamiliar ways make her the source of attention. But nobody has an idea of what would make her contented in life. That is until she engages her grandfather the king. What she wants most is a man to make her feel fulfilled in life, a sense of worth her husband never stirred in her bosom. So, when three years later, Njoumen's dejected husband challenges this ...

This is a story about a legend in that part of Africa called “Africa in Miniature”, “The Microcosm of Africa.” There was a time in the land when the story of Josef Nana Njike’s life and death became a popular narration. Different versions of the account have been told by those born before him, people who grew up with him, the mothers and fathers whose lives he touched, and the children he inspired. Josef’s life story quickly became a third-person narration, and from that, the legend was born. Still, all the narratives had one thing in common―the disadvantaged Josef Nana Njike ...