Ferdinand Oyono

Ferdinand Oyono (14 September 1929 – 10 June 2010) was a diplomat, politician and author from Cameroon. His literary work is recognised for a sense of irony that reveals how easily people can be fooled.

Quotes

The Old Man and the Medal (1956)

• I thought I had married a man, a real man… instead I married an arse-full of shit. My Children, my poor children – sold like the Lord who was sold by Judas…
  • Part 2, Chapter 2

• A good hunter is like a whore, you can smell one a mile of.
  • Pg. 7

• Oh, road, daughter of all our labour, lead me to the white man!
  • Pg. 11

• My future parents-in-law had asked me for a bundle of stock-fish so that I could marry their daughter according to civil rites. I have already given them thirty thousand francs, a case of beer, a pith-helmet, a sack of salt, three matchets, three sheep, a water-bucket, a cast-iron cooking pot, and a sack of rice. All that was left was the stock fish.
  • pg. 33

• A panther-rat runs along the path. He knows where he is going.
  • pg. 141

• Fuck off out of here! Go on get out of my hut!
  • pg. 147

• If you heart begins to beat when you get to the end of your journey, retrace your steps.
  • pg. 157
  • Engamba's thought while trying to go find out what happened to Meka

• All these people who pretended they had come to grieve with Meka were just dogs.
  • Pg. 163

• O man with the electric torch. God has sent you to me. Come and help me to find the path leading to the location….

• Get up, you pig! Where are your papers? Where have you come from? What are you doing fucking around here?

• My son, you are young enough to be my son, why do you want to shed blood as old as your own father’s? Why do you want to bring a curse on you and your…
  • Meka plea to one of the constables

• Cover up your dirty old arse and show me your papers!

Houseboy (1956)

• 'Brother,’ he said. ‘Brother, what are we? What are we blackmen who are called French?
  • Page 4

• Today, Father Vandermayer came back from the bush. He has brought five women with him. It seems they are Christians that he has taken away from their polygamous husband. Five more boarders for the Sixas. If they knew the work there is waiting for them here, they would have stayed behind with their husband.
  • p. 15

• But for me, it is more than mourning. I have died my first death….
  • Page 20

• I shall be the Chief European's boy. The dog of a king is a king of dogs.
  • p. 20

• My master is thickset. His legs have great muscles like the legs of a pedlar. He is the kind of man we call 'mahogany-trunk' because the trunk of the mahogany tree is so strong that it never bends in a storm. I am not a storm. I am the thing that obeys.
  • Page 22

• With that he shot out a kick to my shins that sent me sprawling under the table. The Commandant's kick was even more painful than the kick of the late father Gilbert. He seemed pleased with his effort.
  • p. 23

• At the first alarm I was jostled, then knocked down and trampled on. I could feel the Greek's dog at my heel. I shall never know how I managed to get to my feet and to climb up to the top of the huge mango tree. There I took refuge. The Europeans were laughing and pointing up to the top of the tree where I was hiding. The Commandant was laughing as well. He had not recognized me. How could he recognize me? All Africans look the same to them.
  • p. 27-28

• He had not remembered me. How might he remember me? All Africans appear to be identical to them. ”
  • After the Burial service, p. 28

• I was alleviated by this discovery. It executed something within me … I realized I ought to never be startled of the Commandant again.
  • After the Memorial service, p. 28

• The Commandant trod on my fingers as he went out. I did not cry out. He did not turn round.
  • p. 29

• Before them, the statue of Holy person Subside, who had been so darkened by the climate that he could have gone for an African, was roosted dubiously on a sort of steeple at such an edge, that it looked as though in a little while he would come toppling down.
  • After the Burial service, p. 33

• "Son of a dog," he said to me, "where is your master?"
  • p. 35

• Life, he says, is like the chameleon, changing colour all the time.
  • Page 36

• The elephant does not rot in a secret place.
  • Sophie, Page 41

• He let me go. Through the darkness I saw his white hands move in a gesture of disgust as if he had touched something unclean.
  • p. 42

• Ah, these whites, she burst out. The dog can die of hunger beside his master's meat. They don't bury the goat up to the horns. They bury him altogether.
  • Sophie, Page 44

• It is not the wolf that cries, but the goat.
  • This highlights the hypocritical attitude of the colonizers, who often pity the natives while simultaneously exploiting them. Page 46

• My happiness has neither day nor night. I didn't know about it, it just burst upon my whole being. I will sing to my flute, I will sing on the banks of rivers, but no words can express my happiness. I have held the hand of my queen. I felt that I was really alive. From now on my hand is sacred and must not know the lower regions of my body. My hand belongs to my queen whose hair is the colour of ebony, with eyes that are like the antelope's, whose skin is pink and white as ivory. A shudder ran through my body at the touch of her tiny moist hand, She trembled like a flower dancing in the breeze. My life was mingling with hers at the touch of her hand. Her smile is refreshing as a spring of water. Her look is as warm as a ray from the setting sun. It bathes you in a light that warms the depths of the heart. I am afraid... afraid of myself...
  • p. 47

• Everybody told his own little African story to refute him and demonstrate that the African is a child or a fool.
  • p. 52

• They lamented 'the Martyr' as they called Father Gilbert because he died on African soil.
  • Page 53

• The river does not go back to its spring.
  • Page 56

• Truth lies beyond the mountains. You must travel to find it.
  • Page 57

• If I talk it is because I have a mouth. If I see, it is because I have eyes. The eye goes farther and faster than the mouth, nothing stops it...
  • Page 60

• Since when does the pot rub itself against the hammer?
  • Page 62

• Is the white man's neighbour only other white men? Who can go on believing the stuff we are served up in the churches when things happen like I saw today...
  • Page 76

• M. Moreau is right, we must have hard head. Ndjangoula brought down his rifle butt the first time, I thought their skulls would shatter. I could not hold myself from shaking as I watched. It was terrible. I thought of all the priests, all the pastors, all the white men, who came to save our souls and preach love of our neighbours. Is the white man's neighbour only other white men? Who can go on believing the stuff we are served up in the churches when things like I saw today. It will be the usual thing. M. Moreau's suspects will be sent to the 'Blackman's Grave' where they will spend a few days painfully dying. Then they will be buried naked in the prisoners' cemetery. On Sunday, the priest will say, 'Dearly beloved brethren, pray for all those prisoners who die without making their peace with God. M. Moreau will present his up-turned topee to the faithful. Everyone will put in a little more than he had intended. All the money goes to the whites. They are always thinking up new ways to get back what little money they pay us. How wretched we are.
  • p. 76

• There are two worlds," said Baklu, "ours is a world of respect and mystery and magic. Their world brings everything in the daylight, even the things that weren't meant to be.
  • p. 81

• When will you grasp that for the whites, you are only alive to do their work and for no other reason. I am the cook. The white man does not see me except with his stomach.
  • The Cook, Page 87

• Our ancestors used to say you must escape when the water is still only up to the knees.
  • Page 100

• There are things one prefers not to think about but that doesn't mean one forgets about them.
  • p. 101

• Nothing today, except steadily mounting hostility from the Commandant. He is becoming completely wild. Kicks and insults have started again. He thinks this humiliates me and he can't find any other way. He forgets that it is all part of my job as a houseboy, a job which holds no more secrets for me. I wonder why he too refers to me as 'Monsieur Toundi'.
  • p. 101-102

• The Commandant trod on my left hand. He was talking to Madame at the time and he went on talking as if he hadn't noticed. He managed to bring his foot down while I was off my guard, giving his boots a final polish before he went out. He has no memory and no imagination. He forgets he has already tried this on me and it did not make me cry out. As the first time he just walked on without looking round but this time he went jauntily like a man who feels pleased with himself.
  • p. 102

• I went back to the refrigerator and took the opportunity when the Commander was not looking to spit just a few tiny specks spittle into the clean glass I was filling. He drank it down and put the glass back on the tray without looking at me. He waved me away with a nervous movement of the back of his hand.
  • p. 103

External links

• The Old Man and the Medal
• Samwitason Academy
• Goodreads Houseboy