Nama Didier from Cameroon wins China's 14th Special Book Award

The 14th Special Book Award Ceremony of China was held on December 18, 2020 in Beijing. The ceremony was an occasion to honor 15 winners from 15 countries who have made outstanding contributions to promoting Chinese publications and cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries.

Dr. Nama Didier, author of the local Chinese textbook Hello Cameroon was the youngest to receive the most coveted award, and the only African. Didier was one of the first graduates in the Chinese major at the Higher Teacher’s Training College of the University of Maroua. He holds a Master’s degree in Chinese International Education from Zhejiang Normal University and a PhD in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics from the Beijing Language and Culture University. He worked as an overseas volunteer at the Confucius Institute at the University of Yaounde II. He is currently teaching Chinese in the faculty of arts, letters and social sciences in the University of Maroua, and serving as the national pedagogic inspector of Chinese in the Ministry of Secondary Education.

Dr. Didier has also organized the translation of more than 20 books into French including: Thirty Years of Chinese Cultural Heritage, Thirty Years of Basic Education in China, and Thirty Years of China’s Fight against Poverty.

In 2013, with the support of Zhejiang Normal University, the Confucius Institute of the University of Yaounde II and the University of Maroua, Dr. Didier and other experts from China and Cameroon set up a textbook editing committee and co-edited Hello Cameroon, a series of textbooks for teaching Chinese in secondary schools. The second edition was published by Zhejiang Education Press in March 2017. Hello Cameroon is the first local Chinese textbook in Africa and is compiled in both Chinese and French. The book consists of four volumes and is an official textbook authorized by the Ministry of Secondary Education of Cameroon. The book meets the needs of Chinese courses taught in public secondary schools, and has greatly promoted the teaching of Chinese in Cameroon secondary schools, becoming the reference standard for Chinese education in middle schools in other African countries.
In 2020, the Confucius Institute at the University of Yaounde II launched the recording of the first volume of Hello Cameroon into micro-video lessons. The recorded lessons will be published on the Chinese Linguistic Data Consortium from where learners can access them for free.

This year’s awards ceremony in Beijing was recorded and broadcast online. Vice Minister Zhang Jianchun of the Central Propaganda Department personally handed the awards to ambassadors and officials of the countries concerned while the 15 winners watched the award ceremony online.

The Special Book Award of China, the county’s highest publication award for foreigners, is sponsored by the National Press and Publication Administration and included in the national honors framework. It was established in 2005. So far, 153 writers, translators and publishers from 54 countries have won the award.