A Time to Reconcile: A Play for Children

A Time to Reconcile is a comedy with a serious tone featuring Beta, a young girl, whose choice of marriage goes contrary to that of her parents. Her suitor, Chato, hails from an enemy tribe, and her parents see her choice as a sign of bad luck. The conflicts that ensue uncover a brilliant and tactful portrayal of preoccupations rampant in today's Africa in general and Cameroon in particular. The involvement of the tribal chief, the Man of God, the two enemy tribes and family members, results in a twist in the plot. This twist brings about reconciliation and a successful marriage between Chato and Beta. The Man of God, another suitor to Beta, a symbol of what is popularly known as the "African Independent Churches", reveals the role parents usually play in determining the spouses of their daughters. George Njimele was born in Awing, North West Region of Cameroon in 1973. He started writing at an early age and writes mostly for children and young adults. He took up writing full-time and started the Peacock Writers Series in Cameroon. He won the National Prize for poetry in 1995 organized by the National Book Development Council. Some of his works such as Madmen and Traitors (2015), The Queen of Power (1998), Undeserved Suffering (2008), The Slave Boys (2008) and Poverty is Crazy (2012) are prescribed in the Cameroon school curriculum (literature awareness) for beginners in secondary school. His other works include: King Shaba (2006), House of Peace (2007), Land of Sweet Meat (2017), and Reap What You Sow (2020).