In his memoir, From the Highlands of Nkar to the World, Martin Jumbam
sets out on an adventure which leads him from the cosy domesticity of
life in his village of Nkar, under the patronage of his parents,
fervently-strict Catholic Christians, to what is practically a terra
incognito, the unknown, the unfamiliar world that first opens up to him
when he follows his elder brother, a Catholic teacher, to Nkambe, far
from his native Nkar village. This becomes the first of an adventure
that will eventually see him drift further and further away from his
native village out into the beckoning wide world, a journey of nearly
half a century, during which he frequents university amphitheatres in
Cameroon, Europe, the United States of America and Canada. Deciding not
to settle in any of these countries, thus rejecting the glamour of life
abroad, he finally returns to his native Cameroon, an already married
man and father of a family.
Martin Jumbam worked for over 20 years for an American oil company,
Pecten Cameroon, in the port city of Douala, Cameroon, before serving
for four years as the general manager of La Maison Catholique de la
Communication Sociale (MACACOS), the Catholic Media House of the
Archdiocese of Douala. He is the author of My Conversion Journey with
Christian Cardinal Tumi (Langaa Publishing, 2014), Beads of Memory
(Spears Books, 2020), and co-author of My Night in Captivity (Spears
Books, 2021). He lives in Douala and works as a freelance translator,
conference interpreter and journalist.
