The Return of Bush Fallers: Cameroon Anglophone Fiction Responds to Clandestine Immigration

Abstract

Since 2010, many novels by Anglophone Cameroonian writers tend to portray bush fallers (immigrants) returning back home, either voluntarily or through deportation. These novels include Imbolo Mbue’s international award-winning debut Behold the Dreamers (2016), Timothy Mbombo’s The Last Bush Faller (2016), Priscilla Manjoh’s Eko Prize winning Snare (2013), Charles Nfon’s Greener from a Distance (2013) and Lucas Tasi’s Home is Best (forthcoming). Mainly using literary activism, this paper will read the return of bush fallers in these novels as a contribution to curbing clandestine/illegal, purposeless immigration.