The Cameroonian Anglophone novelist, poet, and painter Mbella Sonne Dipoko represents the first generation of Anglophone Cameroonian novelists and is still considered, along with Kenjo Jumbam as one of the foremost writers of Anglophone Cameroonian literature.

His novel, Because of Women (1968) is one of th ebest known Cameroonian novels written in English, and is certainly his signature work. The novel details the tribulations of a fisherman who has difficulty choosing between two potential wives, ultimately gaining neither in a series of tragic events borne of his inability to fathom his true desires and needs. The novel has been the subject of controversy, first when British publishing house Heinemann initially balked at publishing a novel containing explicit sex in its famous African Writers Series, and then from accusations that the text was mysogynist.

His other novel, A Few Nights and Days (1966), is set in France and follows the lives of four students, including an interracial couple, and investigates African-European relations. Dipoko has also published a volume of poetry, Black and White in Love (1972). One of the poems, "Our Destiny," is frequently anthologized.

Source: Enclopedia of African Literature (2002) by Simon Gikandi, p. 148