Mongo Beti


Beti, Mongo

 

(pseudonym of Alexandre Biyidi). Born June 30, 1932, near Yaounde. Cameroon writer.

Beti writes in French. In his novels The Cruel City (1955, under the pseudonym Eza Boto), A Poor Christ From Bomba (1956; Russian translation, 1962), Mission Accomplished (1957; Russian translation, 1961), and The Healed King (1958), Beti exposed the colonizers and showed the growing strength of protest against them while simultaneously depicting the dark sides of patriarchal tribal life. He later abandoned literature.

REFERENCES

Gal’perina, E. “Literaturnye problemy ν stranakh Afriki.” In Sovremennaia literatura za rubezhom: Sb. literaturno kriticheskikh statei. Moscow, 1962.
Ivasheva, V. V. Literatura stran Zapadnoi Afriki: Proza. Moscow, 1967. pages 115–44.
Potekhina, G. I. Ocherki sovremennoi literatury Zapadnoi Afriki. Moscow, 1968.