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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Sins of the Father? The Priest in Two African Novels |
Author: | Lilleleht, Mark L. |
Year: | 2004 |
Periodical: | International Journal of Humanistic Studies |
Volume: | 3 |
Pages: | 27-35 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Nigeria Cameroon |
Subjects: | missions literature Literature, Mass Media and the Press Religion and Witchcraft |
About persons: | Mongo Beti (1932-2001) pseud. for Alexandre Biyidi T. Obinkaram Echewa |
Abstract: | Often portrayed as an ancillary of the colonial endeavour in works of literature, the character of the priest has received little attention. Mongo Beti's (Cameroon) 'The poor Christ of Bomba' and T. Obinkaram Echewa's (Nigeria) 'The land's Lord', however, both present priests that figure centrally in the novel and through whom much of the larger message of the work is conveyed. By the end of both novels, these priests have come to believe that there is a certain futility to the insularity and narrowness of the Christian mission in Africa. The limited appeal of the Christian faith, the increasing insularity of the Christian community and the priests' conceptions of 'traditional' African belief systems and the conceptualization of the African Gods as immediately present in the environment leads to the envisioning of the missionary endeavour as a conflict between 'Man' - that is, the Western Man of God and the Christian community - and the 'Land' - which becomes the embodiment of paganism. How these conflicts are resolved illustrates the views of Beti and Echewa on the future not just of the missions but of Christianity in general. Bibliogr., sum. [ASC Leiden abstract] |