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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Mongo Beti and the 'curse' of Ham: myth and history in Africa
Author:Mbiafu, Edmond MfaboumISNI
Year:2002
Periodical:Research in African Literatures
Volume:33
Issue:2
Pages:9-33
Language:English
Geographic terms:Africa
Cameroon
Subjects:images
literature
About person:Mongo Beti (1932-2001) pseud. for Alexandre BiyidiISNI
External link:http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/research_in_african_literatures/v033/33.2mbiafu01.pdf
Abstract:By proposing a sociological approach to the African reality, the writer Mongo Beti (Cameroon, 1932-2001) has helped extricate the continent from historical myth and inscribe it in History. With that goal in mind, his writing of History has sought to destroy centuries-old myths dedicated to maintaining Africans in subjection. Among those myths is the Biblical story of Ham (Gen. 9.18-27) which, at least since the 15th century, has endorsed the justification of the confiscation of freedom of those who are perceived as descendants from Ham and Canaan. The why and how of the unresolvable failure of blacks that Mongo Beti cannot stop asking has produced over and over again in his prose what the present author calls the myth of the curse of blacks. This essay studies the reproduction and interpretation of a myth that is disseminated through religious colonial discourse, and whose literary manifestation is insidious. Bibliogr., notes. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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