The Goncourt prize for high school students awarded to Cameroonian Djaïli Amadou Amal for "Les Impatientes"

The Cameroonian writer Djaïli Amadou Amal, “Les Impatientes” (Emmanuelle Collas editions), here in November 2020 in Paris.

© JOEL SAGET / AFP

Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow

8 min

The sub-Saharan novelist Djaïli Amadou Amal, 45, created a surprise on Wednesday, December 2 by winning the Goncourt Prize for high school students, awarded by a national jury representing 2,000 high school students who participated in one of the most popular literary prizes in France.

With “Les Impatientes” (Emmanuelle Collas editions), inspired by her own life, the Cameroonian writer tackles very sensitive subjects such as forced marriage and polygamy through three Fulani women.

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It was by videoconference that the name of the winner was announced by the president of the national jury composed of thirteen high school students elected during regional deliberations for the highly coveted prize: " 

The Goncourt high school student prize was awarded to Djaïli Amadou Amal for

Les Impatientes" .

The prize is co-organized with Fnac and the Ministry of National Education, Youth and Sports.

“ 

I am very moved, more than moved, I am very sensitive,

 reacted the winner by videoconference. 

Thank you very much to all the high school students.

For me, this high school student prize represents a lot, because, precisely, when we talk about violence against women, and it is young people who are sensitive to this subject, when we talk about early and forced marriages, when we talk about domestic, physical and moral violence, etc.

and that young people select and choose this book to make it their winner, in reality, it means hope for the future.

It means people are sensitive and therefore it will be a change for the world.

 " 

Djaïli Amadou Amal lives in Douala, Cameroon, but, since her selection for the Goncourt Prize, she shines with her strong personality, her literary and feminist spirit, also on TV and radio in France.

At the end of his speech during the award ceremony, Djaïli Amadou Amal also mentioned another subject dear to his heart: “ 

I cannot not say a word also to remind in North Cameroon, young people, women, are killed every day by abuses by Boko Haram.

I would also like to remind you that, a week before I arrived in France, seven students from a high school in southwestern Cameroon were murdered by Ambazonians in the English-speaking region.

And above all remember that it will not be without education and without the education of girls that we will be able to change the world and that we will be able to develop our countries.

And I hope to be that voice that will make it possible to raise awareness, to make a plea to be able to change the condition of women and the education of young people.

 "

The “tradition” of forced marriage and polygamy

On the 250 pages of Les

Impatientes

, a multiple universe, complex and full of contradictions appears to make us understand the meanders of this "tradition" of forced marriage and polygamy.

With concise sentences using simple words and a very rhythmic structure, she brings out the different layers of this male-dominated society.

Her story in three chapters auscultates the fate of three Fulani Muslim women and three different aspects of the most pernicious violence suffered by women, forced marriage, almost always resulting in physical, psychological and societal violence. 

Djaïli Amadou Amal makes us experience these pains from the inside.

In her novel, we meet Ramla, 17, pretty and intelligent, who finds herself elected rival to Safira, 35, co-wife and mother of six children, not to mention the tragedy of Ramla's little sister, Hindu, married to his cousin.

They all suffer the same fate: forced marriage, polygamy, rape and violence. 

This is not an autobiographical novel

Even if the Cameroonian novelist refuses to have her novel defined as "autobiographical", she knows what she is talking about.

Born in 1975, into a large family in the far north of Cameroon, to a Cameroonian father who was a teacher and an Egyptian mother, she was educated, like her three brothers and her sister.

According to her, her father was not macho, but there was nothing he could do when she was forcibly married, at the age of 17, to a fifty-something politician.

Five years later, and with great difficulty, she manages to get a divorce.

A first experience that does not protect her from marrying ten years later with a polygamous man who turns out to be also violent, not hesitating to kidnap his two daughters to force her to come back home.

Today, she says she is happy with her third marriage to a writer.

In the beginning, to build his future and realize his own dreams, the only solution left to him is literature.

Influenced by the Senegalese novelist Mariama Bâ and the Malian writer Seydou Badian Kouyaté, she began to write to put her feelings and thoughts on paper.

In her settled Fulani family, she has always spoken fulfudé, the language of the Malian author Amadou Hampâté Bâ, another among her leading writers.

However, from the start, she chose to write in French.   

The fight to publish your thoughts

Her first manuscript deals with her “prison” marriages, but even after having invested ten years in these writings, she does not dare to publish them.

It was not until 2010, after having fled from her second husband, that she decided to bet everything on her independence.

She takes the

plunge

to make public her experiences and literary visions with

Walaande, the art of sharing a husband

.

The book tells about the difficult life and the indescribable expectations of four women married to the same man.

After having recorded a great bookstore success in Cameroon, she was invited to the Paris Book Fair in 2012. International recognition and the starting point of her career as a literary spokesperson for women in the Sahel. 

One of the strong points of Djaïli Amadou Amal's stories is not to forget to denounce the complicit gaze of society.

It also highlights how deeply these “traditions” are embedded in each and every one.

Because it is not only men who require women to be "patient".

This mantra "munyal, munyal!"

"Patriarchal domination which forces women to accept their" destiny "without complaint, is also taken up by some women.

Amal also makes visible the vicious circle of violence exerted by women on other women.

Without the assimilation and reproduction of the perverse system by women, the excision practiced by women on girls or the pressure exerted by mothers on their daughters to accept forced marriage would not be possible.  

Dignity and education

It is this awareness and the fight of her heroines for their dignity and a better place in society that she wishes to promote to her readers.

And since 2012, through her association

Femmes du Sahel, she has been working

to improve the education of girls in the region. 

After winning the Orange Book Prize in Africa 2019, Amal achieved the feat of convincing the young jurors of the Goncourt Prize for high school students.

The great resonance of the book in Africa is explained by the fact that the Peuls are found in more than twenty African countries and that all the women of the region can identify with history.

On the other hand, for the Cameroonian novelist, “ 

it's a universal novel.

When I talk about violence against women, domestic violence, every woman should identify with it.

 For herself, the greatest success remains to have opened the door for her two daughters.

They are now continuing their university studies.

For this, this prize awarded by young people in France means for them a real consecration.

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