The Paradox of the Self in A Nose for Money (2006) by Francis Nyamnjoh: Between Searched and Fractured Self

Postcolonial literature has never shied away from digging into Africa‟s (hi)story and the multifaceted intricacies that date back to the „past‟ and have been continuing to hover over its political, economic, social, and cultural realms. Hence, frenetically and devotedly have many African scholars fictionally as well as realistically delved into the paradoxical existential realities facing their contemporaneous societies. Among them stands out Cameroonian novelist Francis Nyamnoh who dissects in A Nose for Money (2006) some burning topical issues such as culture, tradition, modernity, materialism, leadership, (im)morality, (in)justice, capitalism, sexuality, gender, neocolonisation, politics, psychology that stand as strangleholds on the lives of Cameroonians, in particular, and Africans, in general. Leaning on psychology, sociology, psychoanalysis, psychiatry, and postcolonialism, as theories, this article analyzes the tremendous role the self plays in the emergence and process of maturation of these societal scourges. The paper also delineates how the power of the self has forged a dilemmic state of mind, molds the thread of events; how the self is made sense of in a modern area and how this conception of the self, born from self-aggrandizement, is amplified by an (un)critical appreciation and valorization of the other that is considered to be a model of success, wealth, and identity