Bate Besong

Popo Ton Mandat N'est Pas Fini: The Making of Bole Butake's Psaul Roi in Dance of the Vampires and Family Saga

By  Bate Besong (Published in The Post Friday, July 21, 2006, No.0783)

BOLE BUTAKE is a philosophical, ironic humanist, deeply committed to the democratic ideals of a new nation. His sarcastic wit, his creative use of contemporary slang and intertextual references to dramatic codes makes his plays particularly appealing to victims on the periphery of the CNU-CPDM dinosaurs.

The Playwright & The Campus Giants

By Bate Besong (Published in The Post, No 0781, Friday, July 14, 2006)

The words of scholars are wise
and they are always fair.
Their toga of narration
is made of gold thread
& topaz.

They keep the cadences of
Archimedes in rhetoric of finest gold.
they never depart from invocations of eureka

The Professor

By Bate Besong (Published in The Post, July 6-7, 2006)

                   I
Of what use is a politically
partisan mameluke
in a professorial chair?

Of what use is an
Establishment mole
With an academic’s sceptre?