... a read that is refreshing and indictive, provocative and controlled, all at the same breath! I bet you it is the pioneer poetic record of the nascent Maroua University in the poet’s incisive address of the intellectual, moral & material crises of its controversial inception and operation. It also engages an audacious autobiographical poetics that not only reads the prism, but dissects by naming its colours by their true hues. In aspects of genre the poet takes us on a North-bound trip casting characteristic glimpses of travel literature that puts the places, peoples & cultures of the Sahel into a healthily debatable perspective!
Wirndzerem G. Barfee (Poet, author of Bird of the Oracular Verb)
Labang has invoked his muse to tamper the unforgiving heat and landscape of the Saharan North where he becomes a 'Gadamayo'--a stranger in his own country; the poet's testimonial to displacement, God-fatherism, and 'dark days in a lonesome quest for treasure.'
At times liturgical, Labang, in these sonnets, meditates on a society at the crossroads as he traverses the Mayo, contemplates reticent gods, love's endurance, dead presidents and Michael Jackson. With a dash of camfranglais, Labang wonders, Lord, quel avenir?
Kangsen Feke Wakai (Poet)
Professional Reviews
FOREWORD
After his sojourn in Maroua that began as a search for a career and a life, we see Labang emerging with a vision, a voice, a face, and a script that opens our eyes to the fabrics of a society whose values lie in the abyss. Though some of the ills he decries in these lines already swarmed his earlier experience, he comes face to face with them in a new era, in a far off land, and in the midst of uncompromising people. We get a cold chill of the awkward functioning of state apparatus, of the stingy display of personal gains, of life’s lost battle against devildom, and we stop to ask: is it really worth it?
This collection of sensationally critical and personal poems takes us too on a sojourn not only through life’s dungeons but also through our inner ourselves. It reminds us that change begins at home, and though it may take long to stray abroad, when it finally does, the rewards are invaluable. And change, I am afraid, requires us to make a sojourn to Labang’s Maroua; where all is hard and tough, about which all horrible tales are false, but from where we return refreshed, remade, renewed…with a new voice, a face and a vision.
