Alobwede D’Epie, Shortlisted Author for Fiction

Alobwede D’Epie has been shortlisted for the EduART Jane and Rufus Blanshard award for Fiction for his novel, The Day God Blinked. Prof. Alobwed’Epie popularly known in the University of Yaounde as Pa Alobs, was born at Ngomboku, Tombel Sub-Division, Kupe/Muaneneguba Division, South West Region of Cameroon. He studied at the University of Yaoundé where he obtained his BA English and DES in English; University of Leeds England where he obtained his Masters in Folkloristic and Dialectology, and University of Yaoundé where he obtained his Doctorat d’Etat in English Language studies. He teaches Structure of English, Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics and Creative Writing in the Department of English, University of Yaoundé I. He founded the Yaounde University Poetry Club in 1992 with the aim of demystifying poetry and making it an appreciable and effective vehicle for communicating with people of all walks of life. His training as a folklorist has influenced his poetry and sharpened his senses in novel writing. Thus his poetry is greatly influenced by the English Ballard and his novel by Bakossi folkways and language.

His published fiction includes:
1) The Death Certificate
2) The Lady with a Beard
3) The Day God Blinked,
The Lady with the String
 5) The Bad Samaritan
 6) What Next of Kin?
7) Exhumed, Tried & Hanged.
 Alobwede D’Epie’s poetry manuscript Crying in Hiccoughs is in print.
Alobwede D’Epie In His Own Words:

ON WRITING
I write fiction in conformity with Chinua Achebe’s belief that the story out-lives the event. Considering myself, my friends and enemies, my country, Africa and the world as a series of events, I try to record what I experience. I write fictionalized reality depicting the weaknesses of man in general and leaders in particular. To be candid, readers acquainted with my environment and characters easily point out what, where or who is depicted in my story. This is again in conformity with Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man – Man Know Thyself. Man’s greatest problem is man himself.

On Africa:
Whether in poetry or in prose, I look on Africa’s independence in general and Cameroon independence in particular as a dream deferred and agree with Ayi Kwei Armah that ‘the beautiful ones are not yet born’.