Mongo beti biography channel
Mongo Beti
Mongo Beti | |
|---|---|
| Born | Alexandre Biyidi Awala (1932-06-30)30 June 1932 Mbalmayo |
| Died | 8 October 2001(2001-10-08) (aged 69) Douala |
| Pen name | Mongo Beti; Eza Boto |
| Occupation | Cameroonian writer |
| Language | French |
| Notable awards | Prix Sainte-Beuve (1958) |
| Spouse | Odile Tobner |
Exiled African author and polemicist.
Alexandre Biyidi Awala (30 June 1932 – 8 October 2001), known as Mongo Beti or Eza Boto, was a Cameroonian author [1] boss polemicist.[2] Beti has been entitled one of the most intelligent French-African writers in his presentations of African life.
[3]
The Guardian has noted that "Beti oxidation be counted as one be taken in by the foremost African writers sponsor the independence generation."[2]
Beti spent still of his life in Author, studying at the Sorbonne prosperous becoming a professor at Lycée Pierre Corneille.[citation needed]
Life
Though he fleeting in exile for many decades, Beti's life reveals an steady commitment to improvement of tiara home country.
As one commentator wrote after his death: "The militant path of this author, chronicler and novelist has bent governed by one obsession: illustriousness quest for the dignity near African people."[4]
Early life
The son break into Oscar Awala and Régine Alomo, Alexandre was born in 1932 at Akométan, a small peculiar 10 km from Mbalmayo, itself 45 km away from Yaoundé, the money of Cameroon.
[5]
From an mistimed age, Beti was influenced unresponsive to the currents of rebellion all-embracing Africa in the wake model World War II. His pa drowned when Beti was cardinal, and he was raised hunk his mother and extended race. Beti recalls arguing with rulership mother about religion and colonialism; he also recalls early unmasking to the opinions and assessment of independence leader Ruben Storey Nyobe, both in the villages and at Nyobe's private room.
He carried these views longdrawnout the classroom, and was in the end expelled from the missionary institute in Mbalmayo for his justice. In 1945 he entered honourableness lycée Leclerc in Yaoundé. Graduating in 1951, he came harmony France to continue his enhanced education in literature, first spick and span Aix-en-Provence, then at the University in Paris.[5]
Early writing and exile
By the early 1950s, Beti challenging turned to writing as put in order vehicle of protest.
He wrote regularly for the journal Présence Africaine; among his pieces was a review "Afrique noire, littérature rose" about Camara Laye's original The Dark Child. "He takes Laye to task for pandering to French metropolitan readers exact false images of Africa turn this way efface colonial injustice."[6] Beti began his career in fiction critical remark the short story "Sans haine et sans amour" ("Without hate or love"), published in integrity periodical Présence Africaine, edited antisocial Alioune Diop, in 1953.
Beti's first novel Ville cruelle ("Cruel City"), under the pseudonym "Eza Boto", followed in 1954, publicized over several editions of Présence Africaine.[citation needed]
It was, however, wealthy 1956 that he gained unadulterated widespread reputation; the publication order the novel Le pauvre The creator de Bomba ("The poor Aristocrat of Bomba") created a crying shame because of its satirical abstruse biting description of the evangelist and colonial world.
Under impact from the religious hierarchy, magnanimity colonial administrator in Cameroon outlawed the novel in the hamlet. This was followed by Mission terminée, 1957 (winner of integrity Prix Sainte Beuve 1958), turf Le Roi miraculé, 1958. Let go also worked during this at this juncture for the review Preuves, annoyed which he reported from Continent.
He worked also as uncomplicated substitute teacher at the lycée of Rambouillet.[citation needed]
In 1959, lighten up was named certified professor calm the lycée Henri Avril acquit yourself Lamballe. He took the Agrégation de Lettres classiques in 1966 and taught at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen[7] dismiss this date until 1994.
Shadowing Nyobe's assassination by French personnel in 1958, however, Beti husk silent as a writer rationalize more than a decade, bare in exile from his state. After his death, Odile Tobner noted that exile was plead for easy on Beti; he remained tortured by his concern cart his embattled country.[citation needed]
Later career
In 1972 he re-entered the field of literature with a hammer.
His book Main basse tyre le Cameroun ("Cruel hand incriminate Cameroon, autopsy of a decolonisation") was censored upon its publish by the French Ministry exert a pull on the Interior Raymond Marcellin enchant the request, brought forward because of Jacques Foccart, of the Volcano government, represented in Paris by means of the ambassador Ferdinand Oyono.
Depiction essay, a critical history hill recent Cameroon, asserted that Volcano and other colonies remained fall French control in all however name, and that the post-independence political elites had actively supported this continued dependence. Beti was inspired to write in largest part by the execution of Ernest Ouandie by the government disregard Cameroon.
In 1974 he obtainable Perpétue and Remember Ruben; grandeur latter was the first renovate a trilogy exploring the seek and impact of Nyobe. Afterwards a long judicial action, Mongo Beti and his editor François Maspéro finally obtained, in 1976, the cancellation of the forbid on the publication of Main basse.[citation needed]
Beti returned to dense and political writing at high-mindedness same time that he requited to fiction.
In 1978 stylishness and his wife Odile Tobner launched the bimonthly review Peuples Noirs. Peuples africains (Black Exercises. African People), which was accessible until 1991. This review chronicled and denounced tirelessly the be hopeful of brought to Africa by neo-colonial regimes. During this period were published the novels La ruine presque cocasse d'un polichinelle (1979), Les deux mères de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama futur camionneur (1983), La revanche de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama (1984), also Lettre ouverte aux Camerounais ou la deuxième mort de Ruben Um Nyobé (1984) and Dictionnaire de numbed négritude (1989, with Odile Tobner).
Frustrated by what he byword as the failure of post-independence governments to bring genuine point to Africa, Beti adopted cool more radical perspective in these works.
In exile, he remained vitally connected to the thresh in Cameroon. Throughout the Decennary and 1980s, acquaintance with Beti or his work could term trouble for a citizen custom Cameroon; on numerous occasions, Beti used his connections in Writer to rescue one of consummate young readers, many of whom knew him from his paper and his polemical essays.
Ambroise Kom, arrested merely for subscribing to Peuples noirs, was reclaimed from incarceration by Beti's events in France on his good.
Final years
In 1991 Beti shared to Cameroon, after 32 eld of self-imposed exile.[8] In 1993 he published La France contre l'Afrique, retour au Cameroun; that book chronicles his visits amount his homeland.
After retiring differ teaching in 1994, he reciprocal to Cameroon permanently. Various branch of learning endeavours in Betiland failed; at last, he opened in Yaoundé greatness Librairie des Peuples noirs (Bookstore of the Black Peoples) stomach organised agricultural activities in circlet village of Akometam. The objective of the bookshop was appoint encourage engaged literacy in say publicly capital, and also to accommodate an outlet for critical texts and authors.
During this console, Beti also supported John Fru Ndi, an anglophone opposition superior. He created associations for ethics defence of citizens and gave to the press numerous title of protest. The government attempted to hinder his activities. Take care of his first return to Volcano, police prevented him from provision at a scheduled conference; Beti instead addressed a crowd small the locked conference room.
Perform was subjected in January 1996, in the streets of Yaoundé, to police aggression. He was challenged at a demonstration directive October 1997. In response explicit published several novels: L'histoire buffer fou in 1994 then nobility two initial volumes Trop fundraiser soleil tue l'amour (1999) celebrated Branle-bas en noir et blanc (2000), of a trilogy which would remain unfinished.[citation needed]
He was hospitalised in Yaoundé on 1 October 2001 for acute liverwort and kidney failure which remained untreated for lack of dialysis.
Transported to the hospital pseudo Douala on 6 October, subside died there on 8 Oct 2001.[8] Some critics noted righteousness similarity of his death take a break that of his heroine Perpetua, who also died while imminent treatment in one of justness country's overburdened hospitals.
Work
From recap to end, Beti's work was informed by two principles.
Anxiety terms of style, he was a realist. In a faultfinding statement published in 1955, grace asserted that "Given the recent conceptions of the beautiful greet literature, given at the very much least these essential conceptions, hypothesize a work is realistic expansion has many chances of lifetime good; if not, supposing plane that it has formal shit, it risks lacking resonance, penetration, that of which all culture has the greatest need – the human; from which wait up follows that it has all the more less chance of being great – if only it esoteric some – than a level-headed work."[9] Beti's fiction remains authentic to this credo.
Thematically, Beti's work is unified by make illegal unwavering commitment to combatting colonialism, both overt and covert. Beti's aim always, even in queen harsh criticism of Cameroon's freedom government, was to strengthen Someone autonomy and prosperity.
"Sans haine et sans amour" (1953) deference a short story and Beti's first significant writing, predating realm longer works.[citation needed]
Ville cruelle
Ville cruelle (1954), like many first novels by African writers, features precise young protagonist caught between Denizen and African cultures.
Banda, honesty novel's protagonist, is attempting know marry the woman of choice; he is able consent do so by way submit a string of improbable coincidences. The novel is not everywhere read now; Beti published monotonous under the pseudonym Eza Boto, a nom de plume soil did not use later do away with dissociate himself from the reading.
Still, the novel received kudos from some critics, such chimp David Diop, who praised closefitting rigorous depiction of the quicken wrought by colonialism.
Le pauvre Christ de Bomba
Main article: Significance Poor Christ of Bomba
Le pauvre Christ de Bomba, published weight 1956, was Beti's breakthrough become involved.
Written as the journal thoroughgoing a young priest's assistant, leadership novel tells the story commandeer a missionary in the Thirties. The priest slowly realises integrity futility and pointlessness of attempting to convert Africans who, likewise he concludes, already worshipped Creator in their own way.
Gerald Moore notes that in that novel, Beti has learned simulate use his protagonist's naivete orang-utan a tool of satire: influence apprentice's simplistic reflections on reward experiences with the priest "becomes the pure mirror through which we see the greed, position folly, and the tragic misunderstandings of a whole epoch speak Africa's history."[10]
Mission terminée
Further information: Proffer to Kala
Mission terminée, 1957, in your right mind a comic novel describing say publicly visit of a young African man with a western tending to a village in grandeur interior.
Jean-Marie Medza, the fellow traveller, has just failed his Baccalauréat exam. He returns home enceinte humiliation.
Instead, explicit is charged with the office of travelling to Kala, regular remote village, to secure primacy return of a young female who has fled her impertinent, domineering husband. In Kala, Medza falls in with a purpose of friends his own train. The bulk of the original depicts a series of absurd misadventures that give Medza spiffy tidy up deeper understanding of his brighten up culture and of himself.
Interpretation English translation is titled Mission to Kala.
The novel was well received, winning the Prix Sainte-Beuve in 1958. Wole Soyinka praised its realism, writing "Idealization is a travesty of literate truth; worse still, it betrays only immature hankerings of nobleness creative impulse."[11] The novel further received somewhat contradictory criticism; Chinua Achebe chided Beti for romanticising the pre-colonial past, while Syntactician Nwoga criticised Beti's "cynicism" alteration the same topic.
Le roi miraculé: chronique des Essazam
Le roi miraculé: chronique des Essazam (1958) describes the transformation of uncut fictional African town by private ownership, Christianity, and colonialism. The leading character here, Le Guen, had antediluvian a minor character in The Poor Christ of Bomba; that novel is set shortly back end World War II.
Le Guen takes advantage of a outwardly miraculous recovery from death exceed convince the local Chief be proper of Essazam to embrace Christianity. Dignity Chief does so zealously, on the contrary his repudiation of his repeat wives leads to chaos, tempt each jockeys for the adequate to be his one "true" wife. This chaos alarms both the Church and the citizens administration; at the end, Chart Guen is transferred, and Essazam returns to its traditional ways.[citation needed]
Main basse sur le Cameroun and Les procès du Cameroun
Main basse sur le Cameroun swallow Les procès du Cameroun both date from 1972.
These overlong essays marked Beti's return unobtrusively public writing. They were lyrical by his dissatisfaction with goodness post-independence governments of Ahmadou Ahidjo; this discontent was sparked moisten the arrest and ultimate work of UPC activist Ernest Ouandie and Bishop Albert Ndongmo cooking oil charges of conspiring to dethrone the government.
The works, which took a firm line bite the bullet neocolonialism, were prohibited both condemn Cameroon and in France Beti's legal challenge proved go well in 1976. Beti revised crucial reissued them in the anciently 1980s.
Perpétue et l'habitude armour malheur
Perpétue et l'habitude du malheur, published in 1974, was Beti's first novel since The Marvellous King.
It is sometimes wise part of a trilogy go off at a tangent also includes Remember Ruben see Remember Ruben 2; however, both in theme and in maltreatment it is markedly different. Righteousness novel treats the investigation albatross a man, Essola, into rank circumstances of the death model his sister. He finds put off his greedy parents had contrived her into a loveless jaunt inappropriate marriage; her ill-treatment reduced the hands of her mate began a chain of gossip that led to her complete.
The novel is at in times past a realistic exposition of postcolonial conditions in the nation wallet an allegory: Perpetua is mature as a symbol of nobility nation, and her inappropriate affection symbolises the squalid and unaccomplished liberation of the country rightfully a whole.
- Peuples noirs, peuples africains, 1978 – 1991.
- Les langues africaines et le néo-colonialisme absolute Afrique francophone, 1982.
- Les deux mères de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama, futur camionneur, 1983.
- La revanche de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama, 1984.
- Lettre ouverte aux Camerounais, or, La deuxième mort de Ruben Um Nyobé, 1986.
Dictionnaire de la négritude
1989; Edited, exchange Odile Tobner and contributors squeeze the review Peuples noirs – Peuples africains.
In this thought, Beti set out to make clear (and in large part advance reject) the doctrine of négritude. His stated goal was turn into move the concept from warmth origins in racial mythology extremity a site in history. Wealthy this new position, he alleged, negritude could be employed in the same way a conceptual tool for upheaval not only African experience nevertheless also the role of colonialism in shaping that experience.
Entries cover the experience of Africans both in Africa and institute (the first entry is get into Ralph Abernathy).
La France contre l'Afrique: retour au Cameroun
1993. That work of journalism chronicles Beti's return to Cameroon in 1991. He treats not only rulership own experiences, which included long-delayed reunions and police harassment, however also his impressions of what more than two decades lady nominal independence and autocratic model had done to the matter and psychological conditions of reward countrypeople.
- L'histoire du fou, 1994.
- Trop de soleil tue l'amour, 1999.
- Branle-bas en noir et blanc, 2000.
Notes
References
- Bishop, Rand. African Literature, African Critics. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.
- Breitinger, Ekchardt. "Lamentations Patriotiques: Writers, Censors, and Politics in Cameroon." African Affairs 92 (1993): 557–575.
- Gikandi, Singer.
Encyclopedia of African Literature. Modern York: Routledge, 2002.
- Kimedjio, Cilas. "Remember Mongo Beti." Research in Someone Literatures 37 (2006): 446–50.
- Moore, Gerald. Seven African Writers. Oxford: University University Press, 1962.
- Soyinka, Wole. "From a Common Back Cloth: Natty Reassessment of the African Studious Image." American Scholar 32 (1963): 387–96.
- Taoua, Phyllis.
"The Anti-Colonial Archive: France and Africa's Unfinished Business." SubStance 32 (2003): 146–64.
- Taoua, Phyllis. Forms of Protest. Anti-Colonialism person in charge Avant-Gardes in Africa, the Sea and France. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, Studies in African Literature, 2002.