A powerful, heartrending, and insightful novel of a trio of women in
Cameroon who dare to rebel against oppressive, long-held cultural
traditions--including polygamy and domestic abuse--that define and limit
their lives.
Three women, three stories, three linked destinies . . .
In North Cameroon, well-to-do young Ramla is torn from her true love and
wed to a manipulative older man. Safira, her co-wife, juggles envy and
empathy for this new bride with disappointment in the husband she
desperately loves. Like her older sister, Ramla, Hindou is married off
to a man she does not know or want, a distant cousin whose instability
and violence terrifies her.
From an early age, these women were raised to submit to men, or risk
shame and repudiation of themselves and their families. They are advised
to have munyal--patience. They are told that their fates are the will of
the All-Powerful, and that it is unthinkable--or rather, impossible--to
defy tradition. They are reminded of the Fulani proverb which holds, "At
the end of patience, there is the sky."
Yet Ramla, Safira, and Hindou are tired of waiting for a happiness that
may never come. Their lives are driven by impatience and clouded by the
suffering rooted in forced marriage and physical abuse, but it is this
oppressive culture that binds them together. In a society that demands
female obedience, how will these three impatient women free themselves?
Djaïli Amadou Amal makes her literary debut in English with this
remarkable novel that breaks taboos as it denounces the cultural mores
of Africa's Sahel region. Inspired by the author's own experiences and
written with grace, strength, and veracity, The Impatient is a moving
testimony to a shared pain and a call for change--an unflinching
depiction of the psychic damage traditions can have on the women who
must abide by them and a denunciation of violence against all women and
the normalization of domestic abuse--not only in Cameroon but around the
globe.
Translated from the French by Emma Ramadan
