Bate Besong and Bernard Fonlon as Aesthetic Ideological Foes: A Comment Inspired by Oscar Labang’s The Trial of Bate Besong

Abstract

The paper is a comment on Bate Besong’s charges against Bernard Fonlon as conveyed by Oscar Labang’s The Trial of Bate Besong. Its main thrust is that Bernard Fonlon and Bate Besong are respectively from the traditional and modernist aesthetic schools of thought. Even though Bate Besong’s attack is, to a limited extent true, it is largely misguided. If Fonlon is not a poet with an authentic voice to serve as a model for young Anglophone Cameroonian writers, it is as a literary essayist that Fonlon’s contribution to the Cameroonian society must be assessed. If Bate Besong is a major Anglophone Cameroonian poet and dramatist today, Bernard Fonlon remains Anglophone Cameroonian greatest literary essayist. Generally, both writers are concerned with impacting their society for the better, with transforming their society into a better one. The difference between them is rather one of method, of approach.