At 17, Dr. Eric Ngalle Charles thought he was leaving Cameroon to study economics in Belgium. Instead, he says he was trafficked to Russia, lost control of his destination, survived violence and homelessness, lived under another identity, and eventually arrived in Wales, the place he says, “gave me back my name.” In this extraordinary episode of The African Possibility Podcast, host Emmanuel Ogbaki sits down with Dr Eric Ngalle Charles, a Cameroonian writer, poet, playwright, and storyteller based in Wales, for a deeply personal conversation about human trafficking, African migration, identity, trauma, memory, language, decolonisation, belonging and the meaning of home. Eric takes us back to his childhood in Cameroon, where storytelling began around the fireside, long before awards, books or academia. He describes surviving on the margins, the violence he endured, losing his Cameroonian identity documents, and the pressure many Africans abroad feel to never return home “empty-handed.” The conversation then turns to Wales, where Eric rebuilt his life and rediscovered his voice through poetry and writing. This is not simply a migration story. It is a conversation about what happens when a person loses a country, a name and a sense of belonging, then slowly rebuilds all three through community, language, literature and memory. If you are part of the African diaspora in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia or anywhere in the world, this episode asks a difficult question: what do we carry from home, what do we lose abroad, and what must we reclaim for the next generation? The African Possibility Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_africanpossibilitypodcast/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theafricanpossibility Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61576369316103 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmanuel-ogbaki-922a623a2/ Dr. Eric Ngalle Charles Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericngallecharles/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-eric-ngalle-7bab6293/ Subscribe to The African Possibility Podcast, share this episode with someone who needs to hear it, leave a thoughtful comment below, and follow us across Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X for clips and behind-the-scenes conversations. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 03:19 Who Is Eric Ngalle Charles? 04:29 Cameroon, Home, and the Memory of Childhood 06:00 Who Named Cameroon? History, Colonialism, and Identity 07:33 Rewriting the First World War From a Cameroonian Perspective 09:04 “Africa Was Born in Me”: Becoming More African Abroad 11:15 The Family Court Case That Changed Everything 14:04 The Journey to Belgium That Ended in Russia 17:20 Three Days of Torture: Eric’s Darkest Russia Memory 20:49 Living Without Money, Security, or Tomorrow 21:24 The Promise Eric Says His Mother Made with the Ancestors 22:40 The Moments He Thought He Would Not Survive 24:00 Rejected by His Own Embassy and Losing His Identity 25:49 Writing “I, Eric Ngalle” to Reclaim His Name 26:57 Why Returning Home Empty-Handed Felt Like Failure 29:09 The Train Platform Moment That Nearly Ended Everything 29:38 Escaping Russia and the Passport That Was Not His 32:49 Landing at Heathrow Under Another Identity 35:07 The Bus That Unexpectedly Took Him to Cardiff 36:15 Lost in Cardiff and the Stranger Who Became a Brother 37:58 Trauma, Triggers, and Why Therapy Still Matters 39:49 Wales, Poetry, and Learning a New Alphabet of Belonging 42:00 “Wales Gave Me Back My Name” 45:10 Did Writing Rescue Him, or Did Writing Find Him? 46:55 Can Writing Heal Trauma? 48:05 Why He Wrote His Memoir and Confronted Family Memory 50:24 We Are Memory: Bringing Welsh and Cameroonian Writers Together 52:40 What Wales and Cameroon Taught Him About Belonging 56:05 What Success Still Has Not Fixed 59:33 African Possibility: History, Language and Equal Partnerships 1:03:17 The Question From the Previous Guest 01:04:28 Who Should Sit in the Chair Next? 01:05:44 Closing Moments