Alexandre Biyidi Awala (June 30, 1932–October 8, 2001), also known as Mongo Beti or Eza Boto, was a Cameroonian writer and someone who expressed strong opinions. He was recognized for his deep understanding of African life through his writing.

The Guardian stated that Beti was one of the most important African writers from the generation that lived through Africa’s independence.

He spent much of his life in France, where he studied at the Sorbonne and later taught at Lycée Pierre Corneille.

Life

Although Beti lived in exile for many years, his life shows a strong dedication to improving his home country. As one critic wrote after his death: "The determined journey of this writer, historian, and novelist was driven by one goal: the search for the dignity of African people."

Alexandre was born in 1932 in Akométan, a small village 10 kilometers from Mbalmayo, which is 45 kilometers from Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon. His parents were Oscar Awala and Régine Alomo.

From an early age, Beti was influenced by the movements of resistance in Africa after World War II. His father died when Beti was seven, and he was raised by his mother and extended family. Beti remembers arguing with his mother about religion and colonialism. He also recalls hearing the views of independence leader Ruben Um Nyobe in villages and at Nyobe’s home. These ideas shaped his thinking, and he often spoke out in school. Because of this, he was expelled from the missionary school in Mbalmayo. In 1945, he entered lycée Leclerc in Yaoundé. He graduated in 1951 and went to France to study literature, first at Aix-en-Provence and later at the Sorbonne in Paris.

By the early 1950s, Beti began writing as a way to express his views. He wrote for the journal Présence Africaine. One of his pieces was a review of Camara Laye’s novel The Dark Child, in which he criticized Laye for creating false images of Africa that ignored colonial injustice. Beti started his writing career with a short story titled "Sans haine et sans amour" ("Without hatred or love"), published in Présence Africaine in 1953. His first novel, Ville cruelle ("Cruel City"), was published in 1954 under the name "Eza Boto" and appeared in several editions of Présence Africaine.

In 1956, Beti became well-known for his novel Le pauvre Christ de Bomba ("The poor Christ of Bomba"), which caused controversy because of its sharp criticism of missionaries and colonialism. The colonial administrator in Cameroon banned the book in the colony after pressure from religious leaders. This was followed by Mission terminée (1957, winner of the Prix Sainte Beuve in 1958) and Le Roi miraculé (1958). During this time, Beti also worked for the magazine Preuves and reported from Africa. He also taught at the lycée of Rambouillet.

In 1959, Beti became a certified professor at the lycée Henri Avril in Lamballe. He passed the Agrégation de Lettres classiques exam in 1966 and taught at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen from 1966 until 1994. However, after Ruben Um Nyobe was killed by French forces in 1958, Beti stopped writing for more than a decade and remained in exile. After his death, Odile Tobner noted that exile was difficult for Beti, as he was deeply troubled by his concern for his homeland.

In 1972, Beti returned to writing with a book titled Main basse sur le Cameroun ("Cruel hand on Cameroon, autopsy of a decolonisation"). The French government banned the book at the request of the Cameroon government, which claimed the book criticized Cameroon’s independence. The essay argued that Cameroon and other former colonies remained under French influence, and that leaders after independence had allowed this to continue. Beti was inspired to write partly because of the execution of Ernest Ouandie by the Cameroonian government. In 1974, he published Perpétue and Remember Ruben, the first book in a series about Nyobe. After a long legal battle, Beti and his editor, François Maspéro, successfully ended the ban on Main basse in 1976.

Beti returned to writing about politics and fiction at the same time. In 1978, he and his wife, Odile Tobner, started the magazine Peuples Noirs. Peuples africains ("Black People. African People"), which was published until 1991. This magazine criticized the problems caused by neo-colonial governments in Africa. During this time, he wrote novels such as 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), and Lettre ouverte aux Camerounais ou la deuxième mort de Ruben Um Nyobé (1984). He also co-wrote Dictionnaire de la négritude (1989) with Odile Tobner. Frustrated by what he saw as the failure of post-independence leaders to bring real freedom to Africa, Beti took a more radical stance in his work.

While in exile, Beti stayed connected to the struggle in Cameroon. In the 1970s and 1980s, people in Cameroon who knew Beti or his work sometimes faced trouble. Beti used his connections in France to help some of his readers, including Ambroise Kom, who was saved from jail after Beti acted on his behalf.

In 1991, Beti returned to Cameroon after 32 years in exile. In 1993, he published La France contre l'Afrique, retour au Cameroun, which described his visits to his homeland. After retiring from teaching in 1994, he moved back to Cameroon permanently. Some business ventures in Betiland failed, but he later opened the Librairie des Peuples noirs (Bookstore of the Black Peoples) in Yaoundé and started agricultural projects in his village of Akometam. The bookstore aimed to promote reading and provide a space for critical writing.

During this time, Beti supported John Fru Ndi, an opposition leader in Cameroon. He created groups to defend citizens and wrote many protest articles for the press. The government tried to stop his work. When police prevented him from speaking at a conference in 1991, Beti gave a speech outside the locked room. In 1996, he was attacked by police in Yaoundé. In 1997, he was challenged at a demonstration. In response, he wrote novels such as L'histoire du fou

Work

Beti’s work was guided by two main ideas. In terms of style, he was a realist. In a statement from 1955, he said, “If a story is realistic, it has a good chance of being meaningful. If it is not realistic, even if it has good writing, it may lack connection to human experiences, which is what all literature needs most. A realistic story is more likely to be good than one that is not.” Beti’s stories stayed true to this belief. Thematically, his work focused on fighting colonialism, both obvious and hidden. Even when he criticized Cameroon’s independence government, his goal was to support African independence and progress.

“Sans haine et sans amour” (1953) was Beti’s first important work, written before his longer books.

“Ville cruelle” (1954), like many first novels by African writers, followed a young character caught between European and African cultures. The main character, Banda, tries to marry the woman he loves. He succeeds through a series of unlikely events. The book is not widely read today, as Beti published it under the name Eza Boto, a pseudonym he later stopped using to distance himself from the work. Some critics, like David Diop, praised the book for showing the harm caused by colonialism.

“Le pauvre Christ de Bomba” (1956) was Beti’s most successful work. Written as the journal of a young priest’s assistant, the story follows a missionary in the 1930s. The priest slowly realizes that trying to convert Africans is pointless because they already worshipped God in their own way. Gerald Moore noted that Beti used the assistant’s simple thoughts to highlight the mistakes and misunderstandings of a time in African history.

“Mission terminée” (1957) is a humorous novel about a young Cameroonian man with a Western education who returns to his village after failing an exam. He expects to be treated poorly but is instead asked to travel to a remote village to bring back a woman fleeing an abusive husband. There, he meets friends his age and experiences funny adventures that help him understand his culture and himself. The English version is titled Mission to Kala.

The novel was well received and won the Prix Sainte-Beuve in 1958. Wole Soyinka praised its realism, saying, “Making things too perfect is not true to life; it shows a lack of maturity in writing.” Some critics had mixed opinions. Chinua Achebe criticized Beti for idealizing the past before colonialism, while Donatus Nwoga criticized Beti’s “cynicism” about the same topic.

“Le roi miraculé: chronique des Essazam” (1958) describes how a fictional African town changes because of capitalism, Christianity, and colonialism. The main character, Le Guen, appears in The Poor Christ of Bomba as a minor figure. This novel takes place after World War II. Le Guen uses a miraculous recovery from death to convince a local chief to adopt Christianity. The chief becomes a strong believer but causes chaos by rejecting his many wives. This chaos worries both the Church and colonial rulers. At the end, Le Guen is moved away, and the town returns to its old traditions.

“Main basse sur le Cameroun” and “Les procès du Cameroun” were written in 1972. These long essays marked Beti’s return to public writing. They were inspired by his anger toward Cameroon’s post-independence government under Ahmadou Ahidjo. This anger came from the arrest and execution of UPC activist Ernest Ouandie and Bishop Albert Ndongmo, who were accused of plotting against the government. The essays criticized neocolonialism and were banned in Cameroon and France until Beti won a legal battle in 1976. He revised and republished them in the 1980s.

“Perpétue et l'habitude du malheur” (1974) was Beti’s first novel since The Miraculous King. It is sometimes grouped with Remember Ruben and Remember Ruben 2 as a trilogy, but it is different in both theme and style. The story follows Essola as he investigates the death of his sister. He discovers that his greedy parents forced her into an unhappy marriage, which led to her suffering and eventual death. The novel shows the struggles of postcolonial Cameroon and uses Perpetua as a symbol of the nation, with her marriage representing the incomplete freedom of the country.

Dictionnaire de la négritude (1989), edited with Odile Tobner and others, aimed to clarify and largely reject the idea of négritude. Beti wanted to move the concept from its roots in racial ideas to a historical context. He believed négritude could help understand African experiences and the role of colonialism. The dictionary covers African experiences in Africa and around the world, starting with an entry on Ralph Abernathy.

La France contre l'Afrique: retour au Cameroun (1993) is a journalistic account of Beti’s return to Cameroon in 1991. He describes his personal experiences, including delayed reunions and police harassment, as well as his observations about the effects of two decades of independence and autocratic rule on the lives of Cameroonians.