(First Published in Cameroon Today, Vol.1, No. 15, December 17-24, 1992. Page 2)
“ I have resurrected West Cameroon on the International Podium !”---Bate Besong
Bate Besong fondly referred to as BB and widely acclaimed as Cameroon’s Wole Soyinka, has won the highly coveted ANA (Association of Nigerian Authors) Prize for Drama. Significantly, the accolades for Bate Besong’s literary works have come from without our frontiers. The enfant terrible of Anglophone literature, Bate Besong is reputed for his incessant scathing indictments of dictators – in Cameroon and Africa.
His most recent play, Requiem for Last Kaiser is a graphic example of his visceral loathing of acts of depriving the people of their fundamental human rights. As soon as news of the prize award fell, CAMEROON TODAY’S Editor-in-chief, Francis K. Wache met the ANA “Obasinjom Warrior” at his Buea residence. Their conversation: Vintage Bate Besong.
CAMEROON TODAY: You’ve just won the ANA prize for drama. What reactions?
BATE BESONG: The Cameroon(s) is going through a traumatic transition in the struggle for social emancipation and true independence especially after the tragic road taken by Mr. Dipanda Mouelle’s Supreme Kangaroo court.
As a dramatist, one cannot fail to be affected by these issues. However, at the height of my creative aspiration has been the desire to rekindle the vision of our West Cameroonian greatness. The sense of this reference, above all as a dramatic resource, is never far from my mind. I have resurrected West Cameroon on the international podium.
CT: What is ANA all about?
BB: It was Professor Chinua Achebe master storyteller and the 1986 Nigerian National Merit Award (NMA) Winner who started it all eleven years ago. Past winners of ANA include the poet, Niyi Osundare, who later went on to claim the Noma and Commonwealth Prize(s) in Literature; Professor Festus Iyayi who has followed Poet Osundare’s path; Ben Okri who has just won the British Booker Prize (British Nobel others have been Professor(s) Isidore Okpewho, Femi Osofisan, Ada Ugah and the controversial author of Towards the Decolonization of African Literature, Chinweizu.
Entries for the 1992 Association of Nigerian Authors Awards (ANA) closed on September 8th, 1992. Entries were acceptable for the drama, prose and poetry genres from publishers or authors in four copies each. The prize money remained $2,00.00 (dollars).
Four criteria were used in which judges who are Africa’s most eminent literary critics subjected every single text to hawk-eyed scrutiny. They searched for the following:
(a) Evidence of competence in the handling of form and language
(b) Thematic relevance to Africa
(c) Sensibility or texture of the work must be conditioned by the culture of Nigeria and the environment of Africa; and, finally
(d) Suitability of form and subject.
The results of this year’s (1992) winners were published in foreign radio networks i.e. VOA, RNL and foreign newspapers in mid-November after our great conquering of Democracy. Not surprisingly Cameroon Radio and CRTV are still suffering from their October 11 gargantuan amnesia !!
CT: What is the story of Requiem for the Last Kaiser?
BB: Perhaps – and this is what I had thought in my most naive moments. I had thought time could still give the brutal and corrupt, the opportunity, to wash their hoodlum fingers with the perfume of statesmanship. But also by the time I finished work on this play experience revealed that in the end megalomaniacs always do go the way HRH Baal Akhikihrikii comes to his end in Requiem for the Last Kaiser. He knows. We now do know. This is the only way to cleanse a polluted environment. So, you may say Requiem for the Last Kaiser belongs to the prophetic tradition in literature.
CT: Does this prize signify the apotheosis of your literary craftsmanship or are there more heights to scale?
BB: This is the first time ever that I have forwarded work for an international contest of this kind. And I won! The feeling here was exultation at the triumph of the human spirit against man-made walls, but especially a triumph of the West Cameroonian spirit over these mannequins of the Quai d’Orsay in La Republique du Cameroun.
My next confrontation with La Republique du Cameroun will be at the Commonwealth Literary Prize. Should it go the way things did this year (November 1992) the world will now know why France plays wolf with the Biafran scare in the Cameroons. And of course, the hollowness of Le Baule ! This contest will take place come 1993.
CT: When can we expect your next publication?
BB: One is always working on something. Because, essentially, as a creative writer one is influenced by what he rejects, as well as what he incorporates…
I’m finishing work on a new play and on a not-too-new theme. I’m finishing work on an historical drama of collective self-criticism. It is a drama on the theme of anargnorisis. This new play confronts the lunatic road we took after Foumban. The work also --- as found in these things --- pays close scrutiny to the relationship established so far with Cain, our most beloved francophonie brother. Essentially, this new work is a dramatization of the period 1972 – 1992.
CT: As a role model, what advice can you give budding writers?
BB: Above all else, let them be true to themselves. Let them not lie! Let them read --- in all genres ---widely, very widely.
CT: Cameroon is currently writhing with spasms of political convulsions. What is your solution for getting us out of the impasse?
BB: The solution can be found in the tricks time plays on the monstrous egos of puppet-masters and their scallywag-minded marionettes. Doe, Traore, Caesescu, Bokassa, Idi Amin Dada, and, of course, the Fang-Ezoum of Malabo, Macias Nguema Biyongo. Endless Time.
I find this interview not only wortwhile but commendable because of one reason:the success of BB as a writer is usually recognised and heralded from without first-a prophet is never recognised at home? Well,Wache's interview is one of the several cracks through which the finess of BB's art can be glimpsed. Bravo BB!!
Posted by: Emma Evele | February 23, 2006 at 05:32 AM
ROCK OF AGES.BATE BISSONG.
THE LORD GAVE BB LIVE AND JOY AND LORD LORD HAS TAKEN IT BACK, BLESSED BE HIS NAME. FOR BB TOOK HAPPINESS IN THE LORD AND HAS NOW CROSS THE GULF OF TRANSITION.WE WILL MISS YOU BB BUT WILL NEVER DEPART FROM YOUR TEACHINGS
ADIEU BB
Posted by: Nyoh Bertrand (Niceman) | March 14, 2007 at 09:32 AM