Mongo Beti

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Mongo Beti , actually Alexandre Biyidi (born June 30, 1932 in Akométam, † October 8, 2001 in Douala ) was a Cameroonian writer and critic of neocolonialism .

Life

Alexandre Biyidi Awala, son of Oscar Awala and Régine Alomo, was born on June 30, 1932 in Akométam, a small village 10 km from Mbalmayo, which is 45 km from Yaoundé , the capital of Cameroon.

After attending a primary school run by missionaries in Mbalmayo, he went to the Leclerc high school in Yaoundé in 1945. After graduating from high school in 1951, he went to France to study literature in Aix-en-Provence and later at the Sorbonne in Paris.

His literary work began with the story Sans haine et sans amour [Without Hate and Without Love], published in 1953 in the Présence Africaine magazine directed by Alioune Diop . A first novel Ville cruelle [Cruel City] under the pseudonym Eza Boto followed in 1954 by the Présence Africaine publishing house .

In 1956, the publication of the novel Le pauvre Christ de Bomba [The poor Christian of Bomba] caused a scandal with its satirical description of the world of missionaries and colonialism . This was followed by Mission terminée , 1957 (Prix Sainte Beuve 1958) and Le Roi miraculé , 1958. At that time he worked for the magazine Preuves , for which he reported from Africa. He also worked as an assistant teacher at the high school in Rambouillet .

In 1959 he was employed as a teacher at the Henri Avril high school in Lamballe. He passed the Agrégation (national competition for higher teaching qualifications) for classical languages ​​in 1966 and taught from then until 1994 at Corneille High School in Rouen .

In 1972 he returned to writing in a way that caused a stir. His book Main basse sur le Cameroun, autopsie d'une décolonisation [for example: the confiscation of Cameroon, autopsy of a decolonization] was banned when it was published by the Interior Minister Raymond Marcellin at the request of Jacques Foccart , following a request from the government of Cameroon. In 1974 he published Perpétue and Remember Ruben . Although Beti was a civil servant as a teacher and only people with French nationality are allowed to become civil servants in France, Beti's nationality has been questioned because the ban on Main basse is based on an old law that allows the ban on fonts imported from abroad. After a long legal process, Mongo Beti and his publisher François Maspéro achieved the annulment of the main basse ban in 1976 .

Since 1978, Beti and his wife Odile Tobner have published the bimonthly magazine Peuples noirs, peuples africains . The two are forced to organize the sales themselves. It was discontinued in 1991. This magazine ceaselessly described and denounced the evils done to Africa by the neo-colonial regimes. 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), and the Lettre ouverte aux Camerounais ou la were also published during this period deuxième mort de Ruben Um Nyobé (1984) and the Dictionnaire de la négritude (1989, with Odile Tobner and members of the magazine).

In 1991 Mongo Beti returned to Cameroon after 32 years of exile. In 1993 he published La France contre l'Afrique, retour au Cameroun . In 1994 he retired. He then worked in Yaoundé, where he opened the bookstore La Librairie des Peuples noirs , and organized agricultural activities in his village of Akometam. He founded associations for the defense of civil rights and wrote numerous protest articles for the press.

In January 1996, he was attacked by police on the street in Yaoundé. He was stopped by police during a demonstration in October 1997. During this time he published several novels: L'histoire du fou (Story of a madman) (1994) and the first two volumes, Trop de soleil tue l'amour [sun love death] (1999) and Branle-bas en noir et blanc (2000), an unfinished trilogy.

On October 6, 2001, he was admitted to Yaoundé Hospital, where he could not receive adequate treatment because dialysis is not possible there. He was transferred to Douala hospital on October 6th, where he died on October 8th, 2001.

Works

  • Sans haine et sans amour, 1953.
  • Ville cruelle, 1954, German Die cruel Stadt, Verlag Volk und Welt 1963
  • Mission terminée, 1957, German visit to Kala or How I caught a bride, Peter Hammer Verlag 2003
  • Le roi miraculé: chronique des Essazam, 1958, German Tam-Tam for the king, Kindler Verlag 1959
  • Main basse sur le Cameroun: autopsy d'une décolonisation, 1972.
  • Les procès du Cameroun: autopsy d'une décolonisation, 1972.
  • Le pauvre Christ de Bomba, Editions Robert Laffont, Paris 1956.
    • en. The Poor Christ of Bomba, translated by Gerald Moore. Heinemann Educational Books, London 1971, ISBN 0-435-90088-9
    • German Der poor Christ von Bomba, 2nd revised edition Wuppertal: Peter Hammer Verlag 1995
  • Perpétue et l'habitude du malheur, 1974. German Perpétue and habituation to misfortune, Suhrkamp 1980
  • Remember Ruben, 1974.
  • Peuples noirs, peuples africains, magazine 1978–1991
  • La ruïne presque cocasse d'un polichinelle: Remember Ruben 2, 1979, German fall of a puppet, Verlag Volk und Welt 1982
  • Les langues africaines et le neo-colonialisme en Afrique francophone, 1982.
  • Les deux mères de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama, futur camionneur, 1983.
  • La revanche de Guillaume Ismael Dzewatama, 1984.
  • Lettre ouverte aux Camerounais, ou, La deuxième mort de Ruben Um Nyobé, 1986.
  • Dictionnaire de la négritude with Odile Tobner in collaboration with the staff of the journal Peuples noirs, peuples africains , 1989.
  • La France contre l'Afrique: retour au Cameroun, 1993.
  • L'histoire du fou, 1994.
  • Trop de soleil tue l'amour, 1999. German sun love death translated by Stefan Linster, Unionsverlag 2000
  • Branle-bas en noir et blanc, 2000.
  • Mongo Beti Parle, 2002, Bayreuth African Studies Series 54, Verlag E. Breitinger, ISBN 3-927510-65-3

Articles and reviews

  • Karimi, Kian-Harald: African passages between yesterday and today: On the trail of urban life from Mongo Betis 'La ville cruelle' to Alain Mabanckou's 'Black Bazar' , in: Ursula Hennigfeld Ed .: Not only Paris. Metropolitan and urban spaces in contemporary French-language literature. Row: Lettre. Transkript, Bielefeld 2012 ISBN 978-3-8376-1750-4 pp. 125-152

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Beti, Mongo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beyidi, Alexandre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cameroonian writer and critic of neocolonialism
DATE OF BIRTH June 30, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Akométam , Cameroon
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 2001
Place of death Douala , Cameroon