“BATE BESONG WAS CREATED FOR A PURPOSE…” ALOBWED’EPIE (WRITER, CRITIC AND SCHOLAR)
Interview with The Ngoh-Kuoh Review
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TNKR: Let’s start not with an introduction but on a rather very light note. What is your best meal?
Alob:
My most preferred meal is esubag ne nzab e ngen, a typical Bakossi dish of foofoo-cocoyam and saltless soup. This is accompanied by specially prepared fish, pork, mushroom, egusi cake or bitter-leave laced with crayfish and ground dried plantain powder.
TNKR: Are there any underlying principles that guide your writing in terms of genre, theme and/or style?
Alob
I started with poetry but found out that the few Cameroonians who read outside the classroom, read more prose than poetry so I switched to prose – a more liberal and less demanding form of communication. But time and again, I combine the two when an aspect of prose does not convey the required meaning or when prose is not complex enough to draw the line.
TNKR: You have been described as a writer whose creative temper seems to gush rather than flow. Apparently you have had a big harvest of titles within a very short while now. Why do you write?
Alob
I started writing long ago, precisely in 1978 when I started teaching Creative English. But I could not publish because publishing houses abroad were more interested in Nigerian and Kenyan authors than Cameroonian authors. So, some of the works that have been crammed into this period are in fact works of long ago. The novel that would have been my first became the second – coming after The Death Certificate, which was an urgent response to the challenges of the time. Since those who think my creative temper gushes rather than flows did not know about this, I think they would modify their views.
TNKR: The debate among critic and teachers of creative writing is on whether writing can be effectively taught in the classroom like any other craft, say painting, sculpture etc. As a writer and lecturer do you think that writing can effectively be taught?
Alob
Teachers teach conventions or techniques of writing. Techniques of writing are an essential aspect of writing but the finesse or craftsmanship is inborn. A good storyteller may tell a good story but would be unable to write it if they lack the knowhow.
TNKR: There has been a cry that the creative potency of Anglophone Cameroon writing is not backed by equal critical strength. Is this assessment true of your writings, and do you think they have received, “enough” critical responses?
Alob
This is a very positive remark which has to be followed up. Cameroon Anglophone writing is young and so requires a lot of gap-filling.
TNKR: We now notice a phenomenon where Cameroonian books are increasingly published in Cameroon but are basically available only on the internet through what is now known to be Print on Demand Technology. We can talk about Miraclaire Publishing and Laanga CIG in this domain. As a writer, what is your opinion about this recent trend on publishing in Cameroon?
Alob
Miraclaire and Langaa, CIG are doing a fantastic job. Cameroon has many football heroes but very few writing heroes perhaps because football does not threaten the powers that be, as writing does. This may explain why the laudable publishing subvention the Ministry of Culture started a few years ago came to an abrupt end. The truth is that, Chinua Achebe alone has made Nigeria more popular than all the world cup football teams she has produced. Since Langaa, CIG and Miraclaire publishing houses started that gambling, there has been an avalanche of creative works. Perhaps that will awaken the spirit of subvention in the government. Cameroon needs to be known to the outside world through writing.
TNKR: Although you are yet to publish a poetry anthology, we know that you are both a Poet and Novelist. What makes you to have an increasing inclination for prose instead of poetry?
Alob
As mentioned above, I started with poetry but switched to prose because more people are comfortable with prose than poetry.
TNKR: The question of feminity/feminism is a central aspect in some of your works. Without asking you to discuss any of the novels, what are your inner beliefs about the woman and her position in all spheres?
Alob
A woman is a woman. She speaks, dresses, behaves, and does everything she does, the way she does because she is a woman. If she fails to be a woman, the world ends. But the world has for a long time misconstrued woman-ness and abused it. Being a woman does not mean inferiority. Behaving like a woman does not mean being stupid or whimsical. It means being natural. Feminity/feminism has sprung up to right the abuses but the approach is more emotional than realistic. The woman tends to shun being a woman because it had been implanted in her that being a woman is diminutive. I stand for the equality of the sexes and condemn imposture.
TNKR: Political challenges continue to confront the writer in Cameroon, as in many parts of Africa, and the content of Anglophone Cameroon Literature continues to be densely political. Critics in Cameroon and around the world think that this highly political content does a disservice to literature. As a writer what is your response to such critics?
Alob
Writing in politics or about politics cannot be a disservice to literature. Most writers in politics write against abuses. They talk of change and fair play. This cannot be a disservice. What is annoying is that those who are criticized hardly write back. I once challenged the opulent to give us an inside view of their palaces as we give them the inside view of our ghettos, but perhaps because of hidden guilt none responded.
TNKR: George Ngwane expresses a potential fear that “I am afraid with the early generation of Cameroonian writers ageing, dying or climbing to the pedestal of administrative and political power; the budding writers may have no role models” (AW). Do you share this fear?
Alob
A budding writer need not be a rubber-stamp. A budding writer should be self-contained so that change does not sweep him away. To me, budding means starting with the hope of being sui generis.
TNKR: Many are the critics who continue to think or share the skepticism that the death of Bate Besong has dealt a deadly blow to Anglophone Cameroon Literature and that this literature will never be the same. What to you was the role of Bate Besong in Anglophone Cameroon Literature and do you think that these critics are right?
Alob
Bate Besong was created for a purpose. After accomplishing the purpose he died. And that is all. Man is ephemeral, literature is eternal. How then can we say that the temporary can influence the eternal indefinitely? Bate Besong was a great writer/critic. We saw Cameroon Anglophone literature evolve around him and mistakenly thought he owned it. The truth is that nobody owns anything. All we do is we contribute our little quota within the limited time and space eternal ages grant us and after that, we fade away in varied degrees into eternity and are remembered positively or negatively by what we did within the time and space we lived. I use the expression, ‘we fade away in varied degrees,’ to denote a situation in which some people (like Socrates, Homer, Shakespeare, Alexander Pope etc.) are remembered for centuries as if they were eternity itself, others remembered for a century, others remembered for decades, others in years and months; and some never remembered at all. Those who are not remembered at all are those we can consider dead. Those who are remembered are remembered according to what they did in conformity with their assigned purpose. Assigned purpose does not mean longevity. It means accomplishment. That is why when sages design constitutions, they envisage 4 to 8 years, maximum 10 as the most productive a leader can serve, and no matter how fruitful the leader may turn out to be, they have to be replaced. And when the leader is replaced they are judged by what they did within those productive years. They are never judged by what they would have done if they had been in power longer or shorter because things that last a second longer or shorter turn out to be counter productive. Dogged clinching to power or defilement of the eternal order leads to un-productivity. Bate Besong died at the right age, the age of maximum productivity. And so, we believe he would be remembered for a long, long time for what he did and not what he would have done.
TNKR: You are one of those who defined Anglophone Cameroon Literature in the 90s in very distinct regional terminology. With recent trends in writing in Cameroon and around the world, do you still see Anglophone Cameroon Literature in such strict terms?
Alob
Anglophone Cameroon literature is a literature with its own history, territory and population – whether in the territory or in the diaspora. The history of Cameroon is a permanent reality that is based on the fact that, once, French Cameroun reunited with English Cameroon. It would be a fallacy to say the contrary. So, there is nothing like subversion when one says Anglophone literature is different from Francophone literature. The two are different in history and experience, territory, population, style and language. The mask of integration cannot destroy the fact that Anglophones and Francophones have different political, educational, economic, social, psychological etc. experiences of Cameroon. Since literature expresses experiences, the one that expresses Anglophone experiences surely differs from that which expresses Francophone experiences. As a united country however, there are grounds of convergence.
TNKR: Apart from the recent listing of Rosemary Ekosso, there has been a conspicuous absence of Cameroonian writers on the listings of international writing competitions. What do you think explains for this and is there something that can be done about it?
Alob
Whatever is, has a beginning. That Rosemary Ekosso is there is plausible. More will come. The world did not start yesterday. It will not end tomorrow.
TNKR: What will you tell young Cameroonians burning with a passion for writing?
Alob
Take the bull by the horns. Go on, let nothing deter you. Writing is beautiful, it is challenging, it will make you famous and its fame is more lasting than any other because it is discussed in schools.
TNKR: Thank you for your time and for responding to The Ngoh-Kuoh Review.
Alob: Thanks.