The impatients by Djaili Amadou Amal

This book is a novel written by Djaili Amadou Amal (see photo).
She’s a brilliant writer from Cameroon and writes in French.
This is her first novel and it was translated in English.

Bonus: Djaili Amadou Amal is coming to Luxembourg for the “Salon du livre africain” (8-9 November). If you enjoy the book, you get to meet her!

Here is a summary of the story (I should like to precise that this is not a romance novel with happy endings; it isn’t the point of the book):

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.