The impatient : a novel
(Book)

Originally published as Les Impatientes in France in 2020 by Éditions Emmanuelle Collas.

"Winner of the 2019 Orange Book Prize, The Impatients is a powerful novel about three women living in Cameroon who have grown impatient with the unrelenting oppression-patriarchy, polygamy, and the perpetual cry for patience-that dominates their lives"--,Provided by publisher.

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 sister Ramla, Hindou is married off to a man she does not know or want, a distant cousin whose instability and violence terrifies her. Three women, raised to submit to men, or risk shame and repudiation. They are advised to have munyal: patience. It is unthinkable to defy tradition. But driven by impatience and clouded by the suffering rooted in forced marriage and physical abuse, how will these three impatient women free themselves? -- adapted from jacket

Orange Foundation's Orange Book Prize in Africa, 2019.