Murmures

Né au Nigeria de parents camerounais, auteur d'une dizaine de pièces de théâtre et d'une demi-dizaine de recueils de poésies, Bate Besong était incontestablement l'une des plumes les plus constantes et les plus représentatives de ce qu'on pourrait appeler la deuxième génération de l'émergente littérature camerounaise d'expression anglaise. Enseignant au département d'anglais de l'université de Buea depuis le milieu des années 90, Bate Besong était également connu pour ses prises de position sans concession et ses déclarations à l'emporte-pièce. Très populaire parmi la jeunesse anglophone scolarisée, il était aussi la bête noire d'une frange importante de l'intelligentsia anglophone. Polémiste redouté que certains observateurs n'hésitaient pas à comparer à Mongo Beti, l'auteur de Obasinjom Warriors whith Poems after Detention était la figure emblématique d'une littérature camerounaise d'expression anglaise à la recherche de ses marques, tour à tour cassante et tendre, incisive et controversée.

We regret to announce the passing of professor Bate Besong, a remarkable intellectual who taught at the university of yaounde, who published many critical and fictional works, plays, stories. He has published several collections of poetry, including Polyphemus Detainee and Other Skulls (1980), The Banquet (1994), The Grain of Bobe Ngom Jua (1985), and Just Above Cameroon (1988). He also published important plays including The Most Cruel Death of the Talkative Zombie (1987), and Beats of No Nation (1990). he was part of the great post-independence intellectual scene in cameroon for 40 years, knew and spoke with most of the african cultural and intellectual world in west and central africa, at the least; he was a great inspiration to his students, and the most faithful of warrior to the radical beliefs that generated african independence. and that's a lot to say for someone who lived, as an insurrectionist, under ahidjo and biya. his car was struck by a timber truck at night near edea. this is the bitter irony: the deforestation of cameroon takes place, to a large extent, surreptitiously, with trucks filling that road from yaounde to douala, at night, making it so dangerous that the american embassy forbids its personnel from driving it at night. Bate would have had his piece to say about that corner of globalization. Please, remember him for his courage and inspiration.