Showing results by author "Janvier Chouteu-Chando" in All Categories

Janvier T. Chando provides a succinct and illuminating account of the transformation of men of war into leaders of peace in a region with a chronic history of conflict. The reader comes out from this presentation of the humble origins and rise to prominence of Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt with a better understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the motivation of the key players, their hopes, their fears, and dreams, as well as the hidden and untold forces compelling the players to seek salvation or damnation. This brilliant narration of the two assassinated heads of ...

A teenage girl who is about to take a leap of faith seeks the counsel of his insightful uncle. But all he can provide are insights. Does a journey that takes her to the heart of altruism, charity and solidarity, bigotry, racism, and divine providence provide the guidelines that can help her come to terms with her destiny? Does his insightful hand-in-hand lead provide the answers she needs? “Fateful Ties” proceeds “The Fire and Ice Legend”, and precedes “The Sweetest Madness” in the short stories collection entitled “Me Before Them”.

Just before Tatiana sets off to start a new life of deprivation, sacrifice, and sanctity, her insightful uncle helps her grapple with the meaning of life and come to terms with a world where people betray over a fickle, and where the quest for self-gratification supersedes the desire to live a divine purpose. “Hunger Fire” sequentially follows “The Grandmother': and Perfect Love” and precedes “The Fire and Ice Legend” in the short story collection entitled “Me Before Them”.

A family is on the brink of collapse as the members deal with issues of the heart that reveal disloyalty, betrayal, grief, and insecurity. However, one area that does not buckle the trend is where men trained to save lives and work for humanity, exhibit strengths, and weaknesses that confirm the long-held view that interests supersede ideals, that love of life exposes the trait of treachery that resides even in some people with noble ideas. "The Doctors" is sequentially after "The Sweetest Madness" in the short story collection entitled "Me Before Them".

In this brave and chilling account of the post-Soviet space, the author provides us with a fascinating insight into Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the other republics of the Soviet Union through the larger-than-life character of Boris Petrenkov who leads us by the hand through his world, his mind, and the characters he interacts with. This smooth and fascinating ride into a part of the world that people find mysterious comes with explosive revelations that take us through history from the times of Kievan Rus a millennia ago, to the Golden Horde of the Mongols, czarist Russia, the Soviet ...

Hans Wette Heinrich's world turns upside down when Nazi Germany promulgates the Nuremberg Laws and he is compelled to seek sanctuary in Africa. His father, new African family, and childhood friend help him turn his haven into a new home. However, he quickly learns that his role as the first son of an African legend comes at a price as he tames his impulses and comes to terms with the reality of his new world beyond his family. Even as he fosters a noble dream that is haunted by nightmares, and even as he tries to live with the ghosts lurking around a legacy that is too big to inherit, he ...

Playing out as a scintillating story with unexpected twists, “The Girl on the Trail” explores the severe and overwhelming shock of discovering uncomfortable truths about those we look up to, the security of family, the joy and satisfaction of love, the devastation of betrayal and loss, and the comfort of loyalty in our lives. The teenage Tatiana is certain she has her future mapped out: She would find love when she becomes a young woman, she would live a loving life all through college, and she would marry the knight who would secure her heart. But then, her compromised mother shakes ...

There is some kind of a sweet innocence in being the real thing, the true inheritor of a legacy, the upholder of the identity others strive to be attached to. In this account, we see two narratives that oppose one another, but that ought to complement each other. How do a people so divided by history embrace their common heritage or denominator as the children of Kievan Rus, but who later became known as the frontier people (Ukrainians)? "The Real Ukrainians" is the first part of an account that would take us hand-in-hand through our journey that would make us enlightened regarding the ...

Cameroon is the only country in Africa where those who campaigned, fought and died for the country's freedom and independence from colonial rule have never made it to power, where the ideas and ideals of these union-nationalists are still being suppressed by the unpopular system the colonial master put in place in the country after defeating these civic-nationalists in a bloody war variously described as France’s genocidal war in Africa. This retarding French-imposed system keeps the country trapped in poverty, corruption, underdevelopment, dictatorship, despondence, and cynicism, thereby...

For a people that lost more than half a million lives in a liberation struggle for the independence and reunification of their country yet failed to shake off the oppressive external forces who allowed self-rule and reunification of British Cameroons and former French Cameroun but put their puppets in power in a so-called independent Cameroon, this country known as “Africa in Miniature” is an Orwellian reality. It is hard for a non-Cameroonian mind to imagine that there are tidy solutions or pithy fixes to the big challenges in overcoming the reactionary forces responsible for ...

Me Before Them is a collection of exquisite short stories that dispassionately explore life’s temperaments through characters and their actions that give us a better understanding of the enemies of peace―ambition, anger, avarice, envy, and pride―within us. In Dark Shades, a man embraces childlike trust again by baring his soul to his family and exorcising the ghosts haunting him; alas finding out that genuine happiness also comes with empathy and selfless giving. In The Grandmothers, brave matriarchs step in to whisk their grandchildren out of the labyrinths of desolation that their ...

A young king is desperately trying to hold his kingdom together in the backdrop of his diminishing powers owing to the influence of the new French colonial masters. He flexes his muscles and takes his sister out of her conjugal home by arrogating to himself the use of his traditional powers over the issue of the bride price. Her overzealous uncle with an overactive imagination challenges the new king in a French court, thereby highlighting a bizarre but insightful case of the clash of occidental and African cultures. The beleaguered princess finds herself at a crossroads and acts the best ...

When the debased Njoumen seeks sanctuary in his grandfather's royal palace, her number one concern is her mental health. As she glosses in her recovered status as a princess and unleashes the full force of her free-spiritedness, her unfamiliar ways make her the source of attention. But nobody has an idea of what would make her contented in life. That is until she engages her grandfather the king. What she wants most is a man to make her feel fulfilled in life, a sense of worth her husband never stirred in her bosom. So, when three years later, Njoumen's dejected husband challenges this ...

Historians look at the period from the birth of Jesus Christ known as the Common Era (C.E) or “In the Year of Our Lord” (Anno Domini — A.D) to the Muslim conquest and consolidation of the Levant as the most tumultuous for the Hebrew peoples (Jews and Samaritans) of the Holy Land during the last two millennium until their plight was rivalled by the pogroms and Holocaust of the last century. How did the introduction of multiple monotheistic religions into the quagmire that was the multi-ethnic southern Levant shatter the idyllic illusions that the Roman Empire and later the Byzantine ...

Apodado por muchos expertos como "La guerra más estúpida del mundo", el conflicto de Ucrania es uno que casi nadie vio en el horizonte en 2010. Sin embargo, ahora tiene casi una década. En este conflicto en Ucrania dividida a partes iguales, la política arriesgada por parte de los actores locales en el país, por parte de Occidente que quiere arrastrar a Ucrania a su órbita, y por parte de Rusia que teme perder Ucrania y su seguridad, en el proceso es la norma. Al mismo tiempo, el mundo observa con aparente impotencia cómo Ucrania se desgarra por las costuras. La mayoría de los ...

EGEMONE IN DIVENIRE è la prima parte del racconto delle egemoni che hanno plasmato il mondo occidentale, una storia millenaria di per sé sull'antica Roma e sulla natura del suo mondo. Ciò coinvolge gli imperi contro cui ha combattuto, le terre e i popoli che ha conquistato, le invasioni "barbariche" che ha sconfitto e non è riuscito a fermare, e l'influenza che ha esercitato in Europa, Africa e Asia orientale (Medio Oriente), rendendolo il bersaglio di altre potenti forze determinate a abbatterlo mentre custodisce la sua civiltà, gli attributi positivi che costituiscono il fondamento ...

En este relato innovador, el autor lleva al lector por el pasillo de los acontecimientos y la historia innovadores hasta la realidad de que hoy es Ucrania, el conflicto de Ucrania, la Europa posterior a la Guerra Fría y el controvertido mundo unipolar liderado por Estados Unidos. La complejidad de Ucrania, su historia, su política y la guerra multifacética que el dividido pueblo ucraniano no anticipó hace dos décadas se vuelve fácil de entender, sentando las bases para una solución a lo que muchos expertos piensan que es un conflicto intratable. El autor lo logró con una perspicacia...

Dubbed by many pundits as “The Most Stupid War in the World,” the Ukraine conflict is one that hardly anyone saw coming back in 2010. However, it is close to a decade old already. In this conflict in the evenly divided Ukraine, brinkmanship by the local players in the country, by the West that wants to drag Ukraine into its orbit, and by Russia that fears losing Ukraine and its security in the process, is the norm. At the same time, the world watches in a seemingly helpless manner as Ukraine gets torn apart at the seams. Most of the governments in the West blame Russia for instigating ...

En un mundo contemporáneo plagado de conflictos y narrativas contradictorias diseñadas para sanear o demonizar a los países participantes, necesitamos una comprensión profunda pero concisa de la esencia de las partes beligerantes para poder emitir buenos juicios, condenar adecuadamente o llevar a cabo acciones justificadas. Es en esa línea que el escritor nos lleva en un vívido viaje a través de los siete siglos de historia polaca que definieron el carácter de la nación, forjaron su identidad y establecieron sus relaciones con sus vecinos de una manera que determina en gran medida ...

El nombre Gandhi destaca sobre todos los demás en el panorama político de la India por muy buenas razones. El “alma” de la India moderna –Mahatma Gandhi– llevaba ese apellido; La primera y única primera ministra o jefa de Estado de la India, Indira Gandhi, se casó con ese nombre; y Rajiv Gandhi entró a regañadientes en la política y se convirtió en Primer Ministro de la India como un Gandhi. Dejaron legados positivos, pero fueron asesinados por extremistas con agendas exclusivas y retorcidas. Y resultó que sus muertes contribuyeron al avance de la humanidad. ¿Qué tenían ...