Bate Besong

Décès de Bate Besong: Bate Besong a trouvé la mort dans un accident de la route

Né au Nigeria de parents camerounais, auteur d'une dizaine de pièces de théâtre et d'une demi-dizaine de recueils de poésies, Bate Besong était incontestablement l'une des plumes les plus constantes et les plus représentatives de ce qu'on pourrait appeler la deuxième génération de l'émergente littérature camerounaise d'expression anglaise.

Enseignant au département d'anglais de l'université de Buea depuis le milieu des années 90, Bate Besong était également connu pour ses prises de position sans concession et ses déclarations à l'emporte-pièce. Très populaire parmi la jeunesse anglophone scolarisée, il était aussi la bête noire d'une frange importante de l'intelligentsia anglophone.

Polémiste redouté que certains observateurs n'hésitaient pas à comparer à Mongo Beti, l'auteur de Obasinjom Warriors whith Poems after Detention était la figure emblématique d'une littérature camerounaise d'expression anglaise à la recherche de ses marques, tour à tour cassante et tendre, incisive et controversée.

(c) Africultures

African Writers Mourn Prolific Poet, Besong

From The Guardian (Nigeria), March 26, 2007

Click here to print or download complete article in PDF format

Remembering Bate Besong (Frontpage of the Special Edition of The Post Newspaper)

After Academic Honours: Bate Besong Buried In Ndekwai

By Walter Wilson Nana & Elvis Tah (The Post Newspaper)

The Faculty of Arts has lost its pride, its pearl. I doubt if Cameroon would be able to produce another BB in the next four or five decades - Prof. Albert Azeyeh, Dean, Faculty of Arts, University of Buea.

Dr. Jacobs Bate Besong, Lecturer, Department of English, University of Buea, UB, who died in a ghastly car crash, March 8, alongside two other Cameroonian literary juggernauts, Dr. Hilarious Ngwa Ambe, Thomas Kwasen Gwangwa'a and a driver, Samson Tabe Awoh, was Thursday, March 22, laid in his final resting place in his native Ndekwai in Mamfe, Manyu Division.

Tribute to Bate Besong

Paddy Ezeala - Lagos, Nigeria

I am a Nigerian friend of Bate Besong. I met him in early 1990s at the University of Calabar in the house of Ada Ugah, a Nigerian literary scholar and prolific bilingual writer. Professor Ugah, my former teacher, himself died in a similar circumstance two years ago. Besong had returned to complete his Ph.D while I was rounding up my Masters programme.

University of Buea - Academic Honours for Late Bate Besong

By Regina Liengu Etaka [Cameroon Tribune]

Last Thursday was a day of grief at the University of Buea as academic honours were paid to late Dr. Bate Besong, fondly called BB. The ceremony, which took place in the Amphitheater 750, brought together over 4,000 people who did not only come to mourn BB but also to celebrate the works of the great poet. For the Vice Chancellor of UB, Professor Vincent Titanji, the death of BB has inflicted a deep wound in the University community. He said BB was a man of an independent spirit.

Bate Besong: The Final Journey (III)

BB Lying In State at the Amphi 750 of the University of Buea

Bate Besong: The Final Journey (II)

BB's Children Lead the Funeral Procession

Bate Besong: The Final Journey (I)

March 21, 2007 - Posthumous Academic Honors for Bate Besong at the University of Buea (Pictures Courtesy of The Entrepreneur Newspaper)

Bate Besong: Jeremiah In Cameroon (A Review of BB's "Disgrace")

Reviewed by Innocent Futcha

Indeed the poems in this book individually and collectively, are loaded with tons of emotions, crafted in a rich array of stylistic devices and heavily charged with enough semantic venom to have the impact of a plastic bomb". Beban Sammy Chumbow

Disgrace Emanya - Nkpe, Bate Besong's latest collection of poems, displays the following assertion as a kind of frontispiece:  "These people leave nothing but deceit and disgrace as an inheritance for future generations" The letter of Jeremiah, 47. This seeming quote from the Bible is nowhere to be found in the book of Jeremiah. It is made up by the poet who, by so doing, indicates that he should be looked upon as Jeremiah in Cameroon.

In the Old Testament, the prophet Jeremiah is known as a very sensitive person who deeply loved his people, to whom he spoke with deep emotion to warn them of the disaster that was to fall upon them as a result of their misconduct. Some of the most remarkable passages in the book point to the day when there would be a new covenant.