The Lock on My Lips

The Lock on My Lips is an intense drama that foregrounds the conflict over land ownership as a metaphor for contemporary gender inequalities in an African context. Mrs Ghamogha Manka has bought land in Kibaaka against customary law, where land is believed to belong to the man. Tried and found guilty by customary law, she is ordered to transfer ownership of the said land to her husband to avoid dire consequences. A fierce champion for women's causes, Mrs Ghamogha seeks redress in the modern legal system, converting a domestic conflict into a collective battle between customary and Western-derived legal systems.



¿Perpetua K. Nkamanyang Lola is a literary critic, poet, playwright, and novelist whose works have been published in national and international journals. Some of her highly acclaimed publications include The Lock on My Lips, Rustles on Naked Trees, Healing Stings, Fictions of Memory: An Intercultural Studies, and Representing Fictional Minds and Consciousness: Analysis of some Cameroon (African) English Narratives. Her research interests include narratology, gender/feminist studies, identity and memory cultures, postcolonial criticism, and intertextuality amidst dynamic interactive discourses and discussions with writers and experts on academic and creative fora. She has served in various capacities for over 23 years as Research and Documentation Officer at Giessen Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture hosted by Justus Liebig University, Germany; lecturer at the Universities of Douala and Bamenda, Head of Service for Extra-African Cooperation, University of Bamenda, First Deputy Mayor of Mbiame Mbven Council. She is also an Associate Professor of English Literary and Cultural Studies, a Knight of the Cameroon Order of Merit, and a member of the Cameroon Anglophone Writers Association. Her drama, The Lock on My Lips, won the first Eko Prize for Emerging Anglophone Writers in 2015. She currently serves as the Cultural Attaché at the High Commission of Cameroon in Abuja, Nigeria.