蒙戈·贝蒂

亚里山大·比伊迪（法语：Alexandre Biyidi Awala，1932年6月30日—2001年10月8日），笔名蒙戈·贝蒂（法语：Mongo Beti），喀麦隆小说家，现代非洲文学的代表作家之一。比伊迪出生于姆巴尔马约附近的一个小村落，自小又母亲带大，1951年到法国巴黎留学。1953年开始写作，1954年出版处女作《残酷的城市》，之后陆续出版十余本小说，同时担任教职。1994年，他退休后回到喀麦隆经营书店，同时支持反对派领袖约翰·弗吕·恩迪。2001年10月1日，他在雅温得发病，数日后转送到杜阿拉就医，但最终于10月8日不治。

Alexandre Biyidi Awala (30 June 1932 – 8 October 2001), known as Mongo Beti or Eza Boto, was a Cameroonian author and polemicist. Beti has been called one of the most perceptive French-African writers in his presentations of African life.

The Guardian has noted that "Beti must be counted as one of the foremost African writers of the independence generation."

Beti spent much of his life in France, studying at the Sorbonne and becoming a professor at Lycée Pierre Corneille.

Life

Though he lived in exile for many decades, Beti's life reveals an unflagging commitment to improvement of his home country. As one critic wrote after his death: "The militant path of this essayist, chronicler and novelist has been governed by one obsession: the quest for the dignity of African people."

Early life

The son of Oscar Awala and Régine Alomo, Alexandre was born in 1932 at Akométan, a small village 10 km from Mbalmayo, itself 45 km away from Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon.

From an early age, Beti was influenced by the currents of rebellion sweeping Africa in the wake of World War II. His father drowned when Beti was seven, and he was raised by his mother and extended family. Beti recalls arguing with his mother about religion and colonialism; he also recalls early exposure to the opinions and analysis of independence leader Ruben Um Nyobe, both in the villages and at Nyobe's private residence. He carried these views into the classroom, and was eventually expelled from the missionary school in Mbalmayo for his outspokenness. In 1945 he entered the lycée Leclerc in Yaoundé. Graduating in 1951, he came to France to continue his higher education in literature, first at Aix-en-Provence, then at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Early writing and exile

By the early 1950s, Beti had turned to writing as a vehicle of protest. He wrote regularly for the journal Présence Africaine; among his pieces was a review "Afrique noire, littérature rose" about Camara Laye's novel The Dark Child. "He takes Laye to task for pandering to French metropolitan readers with false images of Africa that efface colonial injustice." Beti began his career in fiction with the short story "Sans haine et sans amour" ("Without hatred or love"), published in the periodical Présence Africaine, edited by Alioune Diop, in 1953. Beti's first novel Ville cruelle ("Cruel City"), under the pseudonym "Eza Boto", followed in 1954, published over several editions of Présence Africaine.

It was, however, in 1956 that he gained a widespread reputation; the publication of the novel Le pauvre Christ de Bomba ("The poor Christ of Bomba") created a scandal because of its satirical and biting description of the missionary and colonial world. Under pressure from the religious hierarchy, the colonial administrator in Cameroon banned the novel in the colony. This was followed by Mission terminée, 1957 (winner of the Prix Sainte Beuve 1958), and Le Roi miraculé, 1958. He also worked during this time for the review Preuves, for which he reported from Africa. He worked also as a substitute teacher at the lycée of Rambouillet.

In 1959, he was named certified professor at the lycée Henri Avril in Lamballe. He took the Agrégation de Lettres classiques in 1966 and taught at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen from this date until 1994. Following Nyobe's assassination by French forces in 1958, however, Beti fell silent as a writer for more than a decade, remaining in exile from his homeland. After his death, Odile Tobner noted that exile was not easy on Beti; he remained tortured by his concern for his embattled country.