L’ecrivain est mort : Alas, Poor Fredinand (Son Excellence Leopold Oyono)!

By Bate Besong

ALA Bulletin Vol. 28 No. 2 Spring pages 119-124

The list of African writers who opposed colonialism and stood for independence and freedom is long. Unfortunately, the list of those who ended up compromising and making deals is a long one too… But Mongo Beti,… was never one of them.

Dennis Brutus - University of Pittsburg

Monsieur le Ministre

            Je veux bien croire à votre tristesse à l’évocation de votre jeuness commune à Paris, lorsqu’il vous précédait et vous aidait dans l’émergence d’une ériture africainè.  Mais je dois à la vérité de rappeler que, depuis, vos routes ont été divergentes et que celle que vous avez suivie vous a amené, en tant que Représentant de la République du Cameroun à Paris et à l’instigation de Jacques Foccart, commen celui-ci le rapelle dans ses Mémoires, à demander, en 1972, au Ministre Francais de l’Intérieur Raymond Marcellin, la saisiè de l’ouvrage de Mongo Beti Main basse sur le Cameroun.

                                                                        Odile Biyidi-Awala et ses enfants.

                                                                        

Rouen

,

16 October 2001

.

Paris

in the 50’s.  The chansonniers and the diseuse of Montmartre, the cabarets of Montparnasse, the showbooths; the topical satires at the little theatres; and then, triumph as actor in the title role of Louis Sapin’s Papa Bon Dieu at the Théâtre de Alliance Française.

An evening at the

Latin Quarter

, and tragedy is aborted by hair-breadth escape.  But you still carry the scars of that near-fatal knife wound.  You were hospitalised, after cries of Au Secours!, by your companion, the French-woman, who would shortly become your first wife.

Understandably, your enraged assassin, like most of his French countrymen, had fumed at the publication of Une Vie de Boy and Le Vieux Nègre et la Médaille, both of which appeared in 1956.

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Comments

[mbanjn]

He is dead indeed BB,now a bellytician.Dipoko too is insane as i see him on the street of Tiko with a groove on his chin.what a shame fro camerroonian early wrtiters.

[emmanuel Asong]

Infact, it is difficult to reconcile the man who "the old man and the medal" with the man who later became a servant of the government of cameroon.
How could a man compose such a powerfull satire, and a later on be so compromised himself.
ALAS! for Mongo Beti.