Cruel City by Mongo Beti

Written in 1954, it took almost
60 years for Cruel City to be
translated into English 

Alexandre Biyidi Awala was born in Cameroon in 1932. Although he spent most of his life in France, his early years in rural Cameroon, amid the rebellions that swept the country following WWII, shaped most (if not all) of his literary work.

Alexandre was outspoken even as a child, and was thrown out of missionary school cue to questioning authority in general, and religion in particular. Fortunately he went on to study at a lycée in Yaoundé, and then further education in France.

From early on, writing was a form of protest for Awala and by the 1950s he was being published in Présence Africaine, an African literary magazine based in Paris. Cruel City belongs to this period of Awala's writing, as does Romancing Africa, an essay which is included in the book. At this time Awala used the pseudonym Eza Boto, presumably as a way of distancing his personal life from the critical writings. Eza Boto is taken from the Ewondo language, and means "people who are alienated, without authenticity or autonomy."

Awala, better known as
Mongo Beti

Later Awala would take a different nom-de-plume, Mongo Beti, by which he generally became known in the literary world. Mongo Beti is likewise drawn from a Cameroonian language, this time Pangwe, which is apparently mutually understandable with Ewondo. Mongo Beti means "child of the of the Beti" in this language, the Beti being a large ethnic group in Cameroon, part of the wider Bantu people.

Awala's writing career really took off in the late 1950s, then resurfaced in the 1970s, when he wrote many books, both political and fictional, which fiercely criticised the new regimes which held power in much of west Africa, and also the former colonial powers who still held much sway. 

In the attached essay, Romancing Africa, Awala states that there is no great African literature. He goes on to expand that to be great the literature must be both authentic and popular, and that because the modern African writer (of his time, the 1950s) must write for a western audience if they want to be popular, and western audiences do not want authentic novels about Africa, all African literature is doomed to failure. Somewhat contradictorily he also calls writers who write to be popular rather than write what they have a passion for to be 'spineless'. His definition of 'authentic' seems to preclude involving folklore in any shape or form, which seems a bit strange when we consider folklore is the remains of precolonial belief systems. Presumably his insistence that authentic African literature must remain rooted in the real world is a reaction against the orientalism that attracted many western readers to African literature.

Cruel City itself is a relatively short novel, following the exploits of Banda, a poor and illiterate farmer from Cameroon, as he battles against both the arbitrary oppression of 'the Whites' and the rigid culture of his people. (Spoiler alert ahead) Though Banda battles against against the colonial rule, it is by renouncing the restrictive cultural mores that he finally finds happiness and can marry the woman he wants (and who also pleases his mother). The novel is somewhat rough around the edges. There are numerous digressions which being to short to add anything in their own right, serve merely to distract from the narrative, and there are places where it feels like Awala is treading water. It is clear though that this is the writing of a considerable talent, and has enough spark and verve to carry it through. I would be very interested to read some novels from Awala's Mondo Beti period.

★★★★☆