Zam

A powerful memoir of art, identity, exile, and the struggle to live freely, from a celebrated Cameroonian dancer, singer, and choreographer. 

From his earliest childhood in Cameroon, Ebale Zam Martino knew that he was different. Drawn instinctively to the traditionally female worlds of song and dance, he was described as fame-minja—a feminine nature in a male body. Under the guidance of his mother and grandmother, he immersed himself in the music, dance, and spiritual traditions of his ancestors, eventually becoming one of Cameroon’s most celebrated performers. 

But Zam was also gay in a country where homosexuality is criminalized. Forced to leave Cameroon, he began a new life in Belgium, enduring a seven-year struggle for legal residency while building an international career as a dancer, singer, choreographer, and teacher. Buddhism offered him a new way of understanding himself and the experiences that had shaped him. 

In Zam, he looks back on the family and traditions that formed him, his discovery of sexuality and love, artistic success and persecution, migration and exile, and his search for reconciliation with his past. Throughout, dance and music become not simply forms of artistic expression but ways of transforming suffering and affirming human dignity. 

Intimate, searching, and hopeful, Zam is the story of a man who refuses to be reduced to any single identity—and a passionate argument for our right to exist in all our complexity.