The Impatient: A Novel
By Djaili Amadou Amal and Emma Ramadan
()
About this ebook
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
Djaili Amadou Amal
Djaïli Amadou Amal was born in 1975 in Diamaré in the far north region of Cameroon and grew up in the capital city of Maroua. A Fulani author and activist fighting for women’s rights, she founded and runs Femmes du Sahel, an organization dedicated to promoting the education and development of women in her region. She is the author of three previous books written in French, and the French edition of The Impatients was shortlisted for the 2020 Prix Goncourt and won the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens. Amal lives in France.
Related to The Impatient
Related ebooks
Men Don't Cry Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why Do You Dance When You Walk? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnbury Our Dead with Song Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Whispering Trees Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Who Will Catch Us As We Fall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond the Rice Fields Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Dependence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMrs. Shaw: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tina Shot Me Between the Eyes: And Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLike A Mule Bringing Ice Cream To The Sun (Shortlisted for the Goldsmith Prize) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In The Palace of Flowers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJollof Rice and Other Revolutions: A Novel in Interlocking Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Small Silence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmreekiya: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLyrics Alley Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Better Never Than Late Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women Write Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Mouth Full of Salt Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Discretion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlways Another Country Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Season of Crimson Blossoms Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Casualty of Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bitter & Sweet Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Door Was Open Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGo Tell the Sun Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Murky Waters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpace Between Us Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Act of Defiance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lagos is Killing Me Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFive Nights before the Summit Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Literary Fiction For You
Demon Copperhead: A Pulitzer Prize Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Birds: Erotica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Tattooist of Auschwitz: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Handmaid's Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Annihilation: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Ugly and Wonderful Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pride and Prejudice: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Piranesi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tender Is the Flesh Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Who Have Never Known Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Tan's Circle of Women: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Thinking of Ending Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Queen's Gambit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anna Karenina: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Woman in the Room: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Impatient
0 ratings0 reviews