BB Profile in the Encyclopedia of African Literature

Culled fromSimon Gikandi (ed.). Encyclopedia of African Literature. New York, NY : Routledge, 2003. pp. 61-62. ISBN 0-415-23019-5

Besong, Bate, Poet (b. 1954, Cameroon)

A PhD in English and literary studies from the University of Calabar (Nigeria), the Cameroonian writer Bate Besong is primarily known as a poet. He has published several collections of poetry, including Polyphemus Detainee and Other Skills (1980), The Banquet (1994), The Grain of Bobe Ngom Jua (1985), and Just Above Cameroon (1998). He has also published important plays including The Most Cruel Death of the Talkative Zombie (1987), and Beasts of No Nation (1990).

Concerned with the state of culture and society in postcolonial Africa in general and Cameroon in particular (see colonialism, neo-colonialism, and postcolonialism), Besong’s works focus on specific social problems of the period after independence, such as injustice, corruption, social, political, and economic instability, as well as the sharp inequalities plaguing Africa and the resulting human suffering.  His works appear to be a platform geared towards the denunciation of oppression inflicted by one group on another and the resulting tensions, including violence, and lack of social, economic, and political stability. In addition to teaching drama at the University of Buea in Cameroon, Besong is also an important critic whose essays have appeared in various international professional journals. 

Further reading

Besong, Bate (1991) Obasinjom Warrior with Poems after Detention, Limbe: Nooremac Press.

----------(1991) Requiem for the Last Kaiser, Calabar:Centaur Publishers.

Ngom, M’bare

Comments

[nfor]

You are wonderful.Right on prof.