Content area
Full Text
Mongo Beti. L'histoire du fou. Paris. Julliard. 1994. 212 pages. 99 F.
With L'histoire du fou we are once again in familiar Mongo Beti territory, and the themes explored in some of his earlier books: origins of fear, persecution, repression, betrayal, conspiracy, tribal conflict, war, revolt, corruption, and the violence and politics of power in post-colonial African republics. Realistically and fictionally, the focus is on Africa today, in the hands of Africans themselves. Occasional references are made to Mobutu of Zaire and to Nelson Mandela's liberation and rise to power in South Africa. Beti's reasoning sometimes dead serious and sometimes familiarly humorous, is powerful, and his style, reminiscent of Balzac with its detailed descriptions and colorful images, and of Proust with its interminable sentences, remains superb. Here...