Mongo Beti

Mongo Beti Alexandre actually Biyidi (* June 30, 1932 in Akométam; † 8 October 2001) was a Cameroonian writer and critic of neo-colonialism.

Life

Alexandre Biyidi Awala, son of Oscar Awala and Régine Alomo was, 10 km from Mbalmayo, which is itself 45 km from Yaounde, capital of Cameroon removed born June 30, 1932 in Akométam, a small village.

After attending a primary school run by missionaries in Mbalmayo, he came in 1945 on the high school Leclerc in Yaounde. After graduation in 1951 he went to France to study the literature in Aix -en- Provence, take later at the Sorbonne in Paris.

His literary work began with the history of haine et sans amour sans [ without hate and without love ], which will be published in 1953, headed by Alioune Diop journal Présence Africaine. A first novel Ville cruelle [ Cruel City ] under the pseudonym Eza Boto was followed in 1954 by the publishing company Présence Africaine.

1956 caused the publication of the novel Le pauvre Christ de Bomba [ The poor Christ of Bomba ] by his satirical description of the world of the missionaries and colonialism a scandal. Then appeared mission terminée, 1957 ( Prix Sainte Beuve 1958) and Le Roi miraculé, 1958. He worked for the magazine Preuves, for which he reported from Africa. He also worked as a substitute teacher at the high school in Rambouillet.

In 1959 he was hired as a teacher at the Gymnasium Henri Avril in Lamballe. He managed the Agrégation ( national competition for teachers at secondary schools ) for classical languages ​​in 1966 and taught from then on until 1994 the school Corneille in Rouen.

In 1972, he returns in a manner of writing that attracts attention. His book Main basse sur le Cameroun, autopsy d'une decolonization [ about: confiscation of Cameroon, autopsy of a decolonization ] was banned on his appearance by the Interior Minister Raymond Marcellin on demand Jacques Foccarts, making it one of the request of the government of Cameroon follows. He published in 1974 and Perpétue Remember Ruben. Although as a teacher Beti was a civil servant and only persons of French nationality should be officials in France, Betis was disputed nationality, as the ban on Main basse is based on an old law that allows the prohibition of imported from abroad fonts. After a long legal procedure Mongo Beti and reached his publisher François Maspéro 1976 basse the cancellation of the ban on Main.

Since 1978, Beti was out with his wife Odile Tobner, the bimonthly magazine Peuples noirs, peuples africains. The two are forced to organize the distribution itself. She was hired in 1991. This magazine described and denounced incessantly the Africa of the neo-colonial regimes angetanen evil. During this time, the novels La ruine presque cocasse d'un polichinelle (1979 ), Les deux mères de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama futur camionneur (1983 ), La revanche de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama (1984 ) appeared, and the Lettre ouverte aux Camerounais ou la deuxième mort de Ruben to Nyobe (1984 ) and the Dictionnaire de la negritude (1989, with Odile Tobner and staff of the magazine).

Mongo Beti returned in 1991 after 32 years of exile in the Cameroon back. He published in 1993 La France contre l' Afrique, retour au Cameroun. In 1994 he had to retire. He then worked in Yaoundé, where he opened the bookstore La Librairie des Peuples noirs, and organized in his village Akometam agricultural activities. He founded associations for the defense of citizens' rights and wrote for the press numerous protest article.

In January 1996, he was attacked on the street in Yaounde by the police. During a demonstration in October 1997, he was stopped by police. During this time he published several novels: L' histoire du fou ( story of a madman ) (1994) and the first two volumes, Trop de soleil do l'amour [ Sun Death Love ] (1999) and Branle -bas en noir et blanc (2000), an unfinished trilogy.

On October 6, 2001, he was admitted to the hospital in Yaoundé, where he could not be treated adequately, since there is no dialysis possible. He was convicted on October 6, still in the hospital in Douala, where he died on 8 October 2001.

Works

• Sans haine et sans amour, 1953.
• Ville cruelle, 1954, dt The cruel city, Verlag Volk und Welt 1963
• Mission terminée, 1957, dt visit to Kala or How I caught a bride, Peter Hammer Verlag 2003
• Le roi miraculé: chronique of Essazam, 1958, dt Tam - Tam for the king, Kindler Verlag 1959
• Main basse sur le Cameroun: autopsy d'une decolonization, 1972.
• Les procès du Cameroun: autopsy d'une decolonization, 1972.
• Le pauvre Christ de Bomba, Éditions Robert Laffont, Paris 1956. en. The Poor Christ of Bomba, translated by Gerald Moore. Heinemann Educational Books, London 1971, ISBN 0-435-90088-9
• Dt The poor Christ of Bomba, 2nd revised edition Wuppertal: Peter Hammer Verlag 1995

Essays and reviews

• Karimi, Kian -Harald: African passages between yesterday and today: On the trail of urban life Mongo Betis ' La ville cruelle 'to Alain Mabanckous ' Black Bazar ", in: Ursula Hennigfeld (ed. ) Not only Paris. Metropolitan and urban spaces in the French literature of the present, Bielefeld ( transcript ) 2012, ISBN 978-3-8376-1750-4, Lettre series, pp. 125-152.