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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The myth of Ruben
Author:Djiffack, AndréISNI
Year:2000
Periodical:Research in African Literatures
Volume:31
Issue:2
Pages:91-116
Language:English
Geographic term:Cameroon
Subject:literature
About person:Mongo Beti (1932-2001) pseud. for Alexandre BiyidiISNI
External link:http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/research_in_african_literatures/v031/31.2djiffack.pdf
Abstract:After an anticolonial phase in the 1950s and a fourteen-year period of inactivity (1958-1972), Mongo Beti transformed himself into a crusader against neocolonialism on the threshold of the 1970s. The essay 'Main basse sur le Cameroun' (1972) marks a fundamental turning point in his literary career. The novelistic trilogy born of this essay, 'Perpétue et l'habitude du malheur' (1974), 'Remember Ruben' (1974) and 'La ruine presque cocasse d'un polichinelle' (1979) was based on Ruben Um Nyobé (1913-1958), one of the founders of the UPC (Union des Populations du Cameroun), who was killed by the French army. In the three novels, Beti gives form to a philosophy that can be identified as Rubenism: Ruben incarnates an ideal of justice and equality, and symbolizes courage and dignity. The happy ending for the guerrillas in the novels is in complete contradiction with the eventual history as it is set out in Beti's 1972 essay. One could see in the Rubenists' triumph the revenge of the imaginary on reality, that is, a catharsis through writing by which Beti means to cure his fellow Cameroonians of a deep traumatism resulting from an aborted national liberation. Bibliogr., notes.
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