Academic literature on the topic 'Beti, Mongo'

The Return Home : Mongo Beti's Late OeuvreIn 1991 amid the wave of democracy sweeping Africa, Mongo Beti returned to his native country of Cameroon to continue his literary career after 32 years of exile in France. My dissertation investigates the originality of his homecoming discourse. I explore how this prominent writer's late oeuvre illustrates his struggle to re-discover the country he left decades earlier as well as how his experience of returning shaped a new literary perception. His work after returning home reflects his gradual re-acquaintance with and re-integration into his native country. I argue that at the outset, his perception is initially guided by a backward glance on the past and that his assessment of the present aims at resisting pessimistic representations of Africa. In his later works, however, one cannot but notice the same sentiments of dissatisfaction and disillusion that were based on his first hand experience. To this extent, Mongo Beti's post-return literature can be considered dynamic as it evolved over time. A diachronic approach allowed me to examine his changing perceptions and representations of Africa based on the magnitude of his comprehension of his environment at each point in time. His post-return writing demonstrates a progressive redefinition of some of his previous narrative techniques as regards such elements as political resistance, authoritative narrators, linear unfolding of the plot, time and space, and character development. My analysis also questions the concept of "home" as a place of safety and refuge just as his post-return novels portray exile as an ambiguous state of being in-between worlds, as an expression of a simultaneous connection to the "new old" home and the distant former one abroad. Therefore, there is a shift in Mongo Beti's post-return discourse away from questions of national responsibility and social progress rooted in a consciousness of belonging to a defined community. The conceptual organization of my dissertation is derived from my reading of each of the four texts of the post-return era, and the way they illustrate the author's process of re-discovery of postcolonial Cameroon.

Depuis ville cruelle, son premier texte publié en 1954 jusqu'à la revanche de guillaume ismael dzewatama, derniere oeuvre en date (1984), Mongo Beti s'est toujours assigné la meme tâche : révéler, par l'entremise de la fiction romanesque, les malheurs qui accablent le continent africain. La colonisation, loin d'être une entreprise philanthropique, général, selon l'auteur camerounais, une societe inégalitaire au sein de laquelle blancs et noirs n'avaient ni les mêmes droits, ni les mêmes devoirs. L'avènement de l'indépendance ne fut, à en croire Mongo Beti, qu'une immense duperie : au colonisateur européen succédait un potentat africain dont la principale mission consistait a perpetuer, grace a la repression armee et policiere, une situation sociale favorable a une poignee de privilegies. L'epoque contemporaine se caracterise par la domination politique, économique et culturel du nord développé et industrialisé sur le sud, victime non seulement de l'échange inégal, mais aussi de ses propres tares que Mongo Beti ne se fait pas faute de denoncer : absence de démocratie, gabegie, corruption, incompétence. . . Toutefois, le péssimisme de Mongo Beti laisse parfois place à des moments d'espoir qui laissent augurer d'un avenir moins tragique. En effet, le combat que mènent, au nom de la dignité humaine, certains<br>From ville cruelle, the author's first work published in 1954, to la revanche de guillaume ismael dzewatama, his last accomplishment in 1984, mongo beti always resigned himself to the same task : to reveal the misfortunes which overwhelm the african continent in his novels. The colonization, far from being a philanthropic undertaking, according to the cameronese author, brought about an imbalanced society in which black people and white people neither have the same rights, nor the same duties in society. The accession to independance, according to mongo beti, wasn't but a tremendous deception : the european colonizer was succeeded by an african tyrant whose principle aim, with the help of armed repression and the police was to further along a comfortable social situation to the handful of privileged citizens. The contemporary period is characterized by the political, economical and cultural domination of the well-developped and industrialized north over the south, which is not merely a victim of the unequal exchange, but also of its own defect, which mongo beti does not fail to criticize : the lack of democracy, its chaos, corruption and incapability. . . However, mongo beti's pessimism sometimes lends itself to moments

Une double dynamique traverse l'œuvre de Mongo Beti, et ce dès 1953 et ses débuts en littérature : en premier lieu, un engagement inflexible, intransigeant, que l'écrivain brandit comme un signe identificateur de son esthétique romanesque et de son action citoyenne. En second lieu, un courant d'échanges souvent fructueux s'instaure entre " prose latérale " (écrits journalistiques et politiques, essais, pamphlets) et production fictionnelle. Autant dire que l'homme et l'œuvre, pour reprendre une formule désuète, sont indissociablement liés et que les combats de l'un trouve toujours un écho et une transposition, plus ou moins distanciée selon les périodes, dans l'autre. Dans le sillage de Sartre et fidèle en cela à la volonté affichée par les promoteurs de la revue Les Temps modernes, Beti refuse le silence du clerc. Et si trahison il y a, elle se niche, selon lui, dans le refus obstiné de dire l'injustice criante et les manquements aux droits de l'homme. C'est cette ligne de conduite idéologique et scripturaire qui unit tous les ouvrages de Mongo Beti, de la " chronique coloniale " aux " romans d'un retour au pays natal " que ce travail souhaite mettre en évidence, tout en s'interrogeant sur les limites et les tensions qu'engendre une telle posture. Mais, parce qu'il n'est pas un propagandiste appointé mettant son œuvre au service d'une cause qui la transcenderait, Beti évite le piège du roman à thèse - même si certains textes, ceux du " cycle Dzewatama " en particulier, témoignent d'un didactisme pesant - et livre une œuvre qui est avant tout le témoignage passionné et ironique sur plus de soixante-dix ans de l'histoire, souvent douloureuse et tragique, parfois drolatique, de l'Afrique.

La "situation familiale et parentale dans l'oeuvre de mongo beti", sujet d'une these de troisieme cycle, constitue une image plus ou moins parfaite de la famille africaine. Celle-ci est restreinte ou etendue, faste et nefaste. Les relations entre les differents membres qui la composent, sont souvent le moment d'une veritable deification. Mais il n'y a d'harmonie reelle qu'autant que dans leurs choix conjugaux, materiels, intellectuels, les cadets en referent toujours aux aines. Ainsi, des que les premiers cessent d'obeir aux secondes, un hiatus se produit qui evoque le classique conflit de generations, s'apparente au complexe d'oedipe et compromet la permanence meme de l'heritage ancestral. En effet, etant donne l'evolution des mentalites, la tradition apparait comme de plus en plus controversee. Certains veulent qu'elle demeure authentique, fidele a elle-meme et eloignee des influences du modernisme. Ils y voient donc un moyen d'affirmer leur specificite au monde. En revanche, d'autres exigent qu'elle s'emancipe de son pouvoir inhibant, libere la femme, s'accommode de cette evolution, accepte les apports positifs d'autres societes; tout en legitimant les siens propres. C'est dans ce contexte que se justifient l'action d'une francaise mariee a un africain, tous les mariages mixtes, l'interdependance culturelle et l'unite psychique de l'humanite<br>"family and kinship in mongo beti's novels", subject of a thesis submitted for degree of d. Litt. , gives almost true image of the african family. The latter is small or large, beneficent or harmful. The relations among its different members give often occasion to witness a real deification. The perfect harmony depends on young people's respect for their elders' principles as for marriage, decisions in material and intellectual matters. When young people refuse to obey the elders, a generation-gap is created, the classical conflict among generations, similar to the oedipus complex that jeopardizes the very permanence of the ancestral heritage. Taking into account the evolution in mentalities, tradition is indeed more and more debated. Some want tradition should be free from its inhibiting power, should liberate woman, should comply with the progress, should accept the beneficial contributions of other societies, but it should legitimize its own values. This context gives a justification for a french woman's action - she is married to an african - , all mixed marriages, the cultural inter- dependence and the psychical unity of the humanity

Mongo Beti, whose real name is Alexander Siyidi Awala, was only 22 years old when he developed his own concept of "freedom". His ideas became public by way of his contribution to the African journal Présence Africaine, published in Paris in the 1950s. Mongo Beti is of the opinion that Africans could enjoy freedom only once independent of their colonial masters. According to Mongo Beti, the colonial masters exploited Africans economically, dominated them politically, and alienated them generally. This work is an analysis of "the quest of freedom by Mongo Beti, an african writer". As regards the approach taken in this work, I will not be following the prevailing mode wherein the author is divorced from his work; rather, I will focus on Mongo Beti as a writer and as an activist. I believe that the knowledge of the life details of an artist can only enrich one's comprehension of his work. The dissertation comprises three parts. The first part focuses on Mongo Beti as a writer and dissident; on his militancy in various organisations such as Amnesty International. It also considers censorship of his works. The second part is a study of Beti's Journal Peuples Noirs - Peuples Africains (PN-PA), a radical Journal with readership and contributors in both France and Africa. PN-PA, owing to its ideological stance, proved a source of irritation to powerful Western nations like France and United States of America. Journals have, traditionally, not been the subject of study in their own right; rather, they were considered a platform for expressing opinions. In this work, I make an attempt to treat PN-PA as an object of study in its own right. The approach is a sociological one. It will enable me to clarify the position of the novelist. The third part of the dissertation analyses Mongo Beti's ten novels, published between 1954 and 1994. The major themes of the novels, namely: the role of missionaries during the colonial period; the conflict between Western and African cultures; analysis of the "myth of Ruben"; and the criticism of dictatorships, are covered in four chapters. It is further argued in part three that there is a clear connection between Beti's writings and the social and political destiny of Africa. The various themes from his works can be divided into four periods: colonial; postcolonial; "the Guillaume" series of novels, and lastly the novel L'Histoire du fou, which indicates a new tendency. The concluding part of the dissertation examines the question of the Institution of African literature, with Beti as a case study. The expression "'Institution of African literature" includes, amongst others, situations whereby African writers are compelled to publish their works outside their native lands, or to rely on foreigners for resources to get their works published. It is argued that such dependence has a marked impact on, among others, the content and accessibility of works by African writers. By focusing on Mongo Beti as an example, it is shown that the activist and the writer are brought together when the question of the Institution of African literature is raised. It is not the purpose of this work to render an apology for Mongo Beti, or to equate him with Francophone Africa or Africa; rather, Beti is merely a case study: an example to illustrate the quest for freedom.