Welcome 2006! (To the Viewers of this Website)

From Bate Besong

My writing output as a whole(drama , poetry , theory)has  recieved  serious attention in book-length studies, journal articles ,research papers , seminar presentations and theses and dissertations.

Having been  "stereotyped" by literary scholars and critics as the "outspoken  dissident" and major author of the new literature of a democratic Cameroon, I would like to suggest that I have experimented with symbolic tableaux , dramatic illusion, mimicry and pageant elements to illuminate the theatrical drabness of the emergent Cameroon----- theatre since the turbulent nineties.

My political orientation (i.e revolutionary socialism) has led me to experiment with both elements of African folk iconography and the Brechtian alienation techniques thereby balancing aesthetics against ideology to avoid outright propaganda.

Mine has therefore been a vision of writing as a vibrant social institution that must dare to be dangerous: irreverently iconoclastic, mocking ,belligerent , even anarchistic , but essentially amiable.

My work is aggressively  revolutionary , using imagistic patterns of symbolic imprimatur; dramatizing topical political issues, and thereby seeking to expose the corruption, oppression and incompetence of a post-colonial, prebendal, neo-colonial, power structure. My writing unites the macabre and the exuberant.

Dear Reader: I write satirically and passionately on artistic freedom, historical , social and political themes ; on literary craft ;on the harrowing stories of victims on the periphery of capitalist/tribal violence , and the widening circle of loss...

I am an inverterate experimenter with language and I love to challenge society's conventions regarding basic aspects of the Cameroonian condition.

For instance, my 1990 play  Beasts of no Nation (a docu-drama) opened a new epoch of political protest theatre in Cameroon and went on like Requiem for the Last Kaiser (hopefully to be published in the United States this year) to win international recognition as a dramatic model of revolutionary theatre.

I will always protest against injustices committed against the marginalised and bruised in the name of politics.

I will always deal with the internal conflict between forces of good and evil in settings borrowed from history and myth.

Dear Reader: We have now most successfully gone beyond the 20.000 readership a year .What does 2006 hold?

Your readership is my LIFE.

Yours,

BB

Comments

[Uche Eze Nkatta Idika]

BB,

That you fed the hungry minds of 20.000 readers and beyond with your wealth of knowledge in 2005 is but a well-expressed indication that you constitute a rich fountain of knowledge to the Cameroon populace and a legendary literary juggernaut in the African continent.

If the Cameroon people fail to applaud your efforts, posterity will not fail to crown you with an eternal glory through immortalization. You are to the Cameroonian people, what Martin Luther was, to the Americans. You are indeed, a veritable hero.

I dove my hat in a special way to honour your intellectual laurels.

Your ardent audience
Uche Eze Nkatta Idika, B.Sc. (Hons) Pol. Sc.

[Tem Edwin Nji]

Dear BB, to me in particular, you have remained a model as a teacher and a craftman; a true Amiri Baraka among the suffering people of Cameroon. Your legacy stands tall; a thing young Cameroonians will in my dream inbibe to creat a better Cameroon for posterity. History will be your witness BB. Keep up the fight. Nous sommes deriere vous. Your true Student, Tem Edwin Nji.

[Tem Edwin Nji]

Dear BB, to me in particular, you have remained a model as a teacher and a craftman; a true Amiri Baraka among the suffering people of Cameroon. Your legacy stands tall; a thing young Cameroonians will in my dream inbibe to creat a better Cameroon for posterity. History will be your witness BB. Keep up the fight. Nous sommes deriere vous. Your true Student, Tem Edwin Nji.

[Nathan Ndikum]

BB,
I am very proud of you keeping up with your good work. As a literary student back in the days at UB, you were always an inspiration to lovers of literature and your job has been very relentless. I still read your works here at the United States and I consider them masterpieces. God bless you and thanks for all your intellectual contribution to our beloved Cameroon.