Mongo beti biography of albert

The work centers on a French missionary, Father Drumont, who visits villagers and attempts to convert them from their indigenous religion to Christianity. He also strives to keep them, at the same time, from adopting Western-style materialistic values that he has witnessed elsewhere among the newly converted. Drumont is saddened to learn that the villagers only agreed to convert because they hoped it would bring them prosperity.

Its protagonist is Jean-Marie Medza, who fails his exams at a French secondary schooland returns home.

Mongo beti biography of albert: Mongo Beti or Eza

His family sends him to a distant village, Kala, to bring back the runaway wife of a relative. The Kala villagers treat Medza as a brilliant, distinguished guest, and shower him with presents. He even takes a wife, but the longer he remains in the remote, unsophisticated community, the more he realizes how little he knows about life. Beti garnered further literary acclaim and another Sainte-Beuve prize for his next work, King Lazarus.

The chief keeps just one, and turns the others out; irate, they complain to authorities, and a tribunal is held in which each side presents its case. Beti lived a politically committed life outside of his fiction as well. He penned articles for the journals Tumultueux Cameroun and Revue camerounaisebut living in his native land became dangerous because of his political opinions and connections to the UPC.

He moved to France in the early s, taking a job as a teacher of classical Greek, Latin, and French literature in Rouen, and did not write fiction for the next ten years. Some of it discussed the final, failed UPC rebellion, whose leader was publicly executed in The work also gained some notoriety in France, where it was banned and seized because of its criticism of Cameroonian politics.

Like other African nations in the years following independence, the country had become a one-party state by then. These portrayed life in Cameroon after independence, such as Remember Ruben fromwhich follows the story of orphaned Mor-Zamba, who is adopted by a village. Eighteen years later, he is reunited with his best friend from childhood, and learns the reasons for his internal exile.

He owned a book store there and continued to write polemical tracts and novels. Its plot borrows some elements from the African detective genre in its story of Zamakwe, a political journalist and jazz fan. The theft of his extensive music collection and the mysterious kidnapping of his girlfriend set in motion a chain of events that bring him to a militia group and its leader.

His storytelling technique remains vibrant and captivating. Beti died in DoualaCameroon on October 8,from renal complications. He was survived by his wife and three children. He had been invited to read excerpts from his books at a Harvard University Bookstore event on October 21st, along with Haitian novelist Edwidge Danticat and Olive Senior, the Jamaican writer.

Mongo beti biography of albert: Alexandre Biyidi Awala (30 June –

Instead, organizers decided to make the reading a memorial tribute to Beti. However, his homeland always stayed close to his heart, and he eventually returned to Cameroon where he spent the last years of his life. Beti married a French teacher named Odile Tobner whom he met in his time spent teaching in Rouen. They had three children. His family owned a cocoa plantation in the southern part of the country where he worked in his time away from school.

He was exposed to anti-colonial ideas and ideologies from an early age through associations with independent leader Ruben Um Nyobe and his supporters. Dramae, Kandioura. Syracuse, N. Gleason, Judith Illsley. Evanston, Ill. Moore, Gerald. Seven African Writers. Pieterse, Cosmo, and Donald Munro, eds.

Mongo beti biography of albert: Albert Ndongmo, the bishop

Protest and Conflict in African Literature. New York : Africa Publishing, Wauthier, Claude. The Literature and Thought of Modern Africa. New York : Praeger, Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. January 10, Retrieved January 10, from Encyclopedia. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list.

Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia. Arts Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps Beti, Mongo. Beti, Mongo gale. Gale Contextual Encyclopedia of World Literature. Learn more about citation styles Citation styles Encyclopedia.

More From encyclopedia. He treats not only his own experiences, which included long-delayed reunions and police harassment, but also his impressions of what more than two decades of nominal independence and autocratic rule had done to the material and psychological conditions of his countrypeople. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk.

Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikiquote Wikidata item. Mongo Beti. Exiled Cameroonian author and polemicist. Life [ edit ]. Early life [ edit ]. Early writing and exile [ edit ]. Later career [ edit ]. Final years [ edit ]. Work [ edit ]. Ville cruelle [ edit ]. Le pauvre Christ de Bomba [ edit ].

Main article: The Poor Christ of Bomba. Further information: Mission to Kala. Notes [ edit ]. Retrieved 28 April The Guardian. ISSN Retrieved 18 June Words Without Borders. Forms of Protest.