Vision afropéenne de la cuisine camerounaise dans Soulfood équatoriale de Léonora Miano : genre, mémoire et construction nationale

This article considers the representation of Cameroonian food in the collection of gastronomic short stories (Soulfood equatoriale, 2009) by a young author of the diaspora, Leonora Miano. Through the study of five novellas, we analyse notably the symbolism with which the writer invests the food of her country of origin and the role she bestows upon it regarding nation-building in Cameroon. Our argument pursues two main axes: we first examine the gendered relations defining the Cameroonian couple as reconstituted by the author through food, its preparation and consumption which promotes a more equitable rapport between the man and the woman. This gender reconfiguration provides the woman with the means to free herself from her traditional role, both tangibly as mother of the family and symbolically as mother of the nation, to endorse many others. We will then explore the development of a diasporic consciousness serving to connect the dispersed members of the Cameroonian nation through a shared memory and history the traces of which are discernable in one’s plate through the act of eating.