A Woman of Africa

Born in the refugee crises of Biafra, A Woman of Africa follows a wilful child who realises that there is life outside the ghetto. We follow her as she develops into young woman, whose eccentric and colourful character drives her to challenge social norms and embrace life to the fullest.


Rarely self analytical, she forces a vicarious, almost existentialist path through her limitations, frequently tumbling in the quagmire, but always pulling herself out without a trace of despair.


Viewing herself and surroundings through the conflicting filters of religion and cynicism, in a narrative voice that is entertaining, moving and occasionally sad, she relates, without a trace of self-pity, the life of an alien and a woman in a modern African society and, in particular, the life of an uneducated Anglophone in today's Douala.


Her experience encompasses a range of issues that face many women in Africa today; rape, AIDS, tribal prejudice, prostitution, as well as poverty and ignorance. Through force of character and a bawdy sense of humour, she overcomes a variety of obstacles, many of her own creation and some thrust upon her by a harsh society, but she ultimately succeeds in fulfilling her dreams and finds happiness in herself as a true Woman of Africa.


A Woman of Africa is a fictionalised reworking of real life stories told to author Nick Roddy in Douala by Biafran refugees.


This is the story of a woman who bounces back.