By Professor Ada Ugah (Sunday Chronicle January 6, 1991)
The art of writing is essentially a revolt against the existing status quo. Imbued with visionary fervour, the literary artist seeks to negate the existential stasis in which he finds himself by temporalizing his dreams and aspirations.
Thus the writer’s private fears and frustrations assume a societal dimension by act of identification by the readers of such author’s work. This act of identification is even more immediate in a dramatic rendition. It is this feeling of total and engaging identification that readers and viewers of Bate Besong’s latest play are immersed with when confronted with the dramatic portrayal of unitary Cameroon’s national question.
Bate Besong is one of the most versatile and prolific poets and playwrights in Anglophone Cameroon.
A contemporary at the University of Calabar as a pioneer English honours degree graduate in 1980, when as a final year under-graduate he published with Scholar’s Press his first book of poems titled Polyphemus Detainee and Other Skulls.
Click here to print or download complete article in PDF format
It has taken me a very long time to leave this signature on this site. For fear of being propagadous or a victime of indoctrination, I will take it simple. In terms of language, Dr Bate Besong is a modernist Chaucerian, in vision, he is the New Okigbo, disciple of Fanon, and an agent of truth. In terms of style, he is the Beckett of Cameroon. As long as our Cameroon society breeds two classes of citizens - first class (the oppressors, francos/sellouts anglos) and second class (the oppressed), Besong's works will remain immortally relevant to this sinking nation of ours.
Keep the good work Dr. while planting seeds that will emanate your philosophy for a better Cameroon to be.
Posted by: Aminkeng A Alemanji | March 31, 2006 at 04:12 AM