Your Madness, not Mine

Makuchi is professor of English andComparative Literature at North Carolina State University, Raleigh. Her publications include a book of short fiction, Your Madness, Not Mine: Stories of Cameroon, and Gender in African Women's Writing: Identity, Sexuality, and Difference.

• The healer -- Your madness, not mine -- Market scene -- The forest will claim you too -- Election fever -- American lottery -- Accidents are a sideshow -- Bayam-sellam -- Slow poison.

"The characters Makuchi creates are survivors; they are scrappy and they are strong, especially the women. As we enter their world and see the neocolonial forces of gargantuan proportions that shape their daily living, Makuchi's pen guides us into a new literary space. She wields her pen like a pioneer's axe in the forest, clearing new spaces…that invite us to consider realities we would otherwise never know."