Art and Political Thought in Bole Butake
By (author) Emmanuel Ngwang, Kenneth Usongo
Not available to order
Publication date:
30 September 2016Length of book:
140 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9781498538114
Art and Political Thought in Bole Butake, through a pluralist critical approach, interrogates Butake’s major creative works—Lake God, And Palm Wine Will Flow, The Survivors, Shoes and Four Men in Arms, Dance of the Vampires and The Rape of Michelle —mainly in terms of their political underpinnings and cultural signification. The intention is to place his drama within the socio-political matrix of Cameroon and demonstrate the topicality of the issues of governance, marginalization, and corruption in Cameroon or Africa that Butake consistently foregrounds in his creative works.
Lake God and The Rape ofMichelle.
Lake God, for example, are projected through a supernatural frame.
The conclusion appraises the contemporaneity of Butake’s drama. His oeuvre continues to inspire so many people: from disenfranchised groups that see in his drama a path to reclaiming liberties and to critics who are challenged to hone their literary tools in the endeavor to situate his works within the dynamics of politics and culture in Africa.
Lake God and The Rape ofMichelle.
Lake God, for example, are projected through a supernatural frame.
The conclusion appraises the contemporaneity of Butake’s drama. His oeuvre continues to inspire so many people: from disenfranchised groups that see in his drama a path to reclaiming liberties and to critics who are challenged to hone their literary tools in the endeavor to situate his works within the dynamics of politics and culture in Africa.
Art and Political Thought in Bole Butake is studded with innovative insights into the plays of one of the most celebrated of Cameroon's creative artists. It profiles a playwright and theatre practitioner whose works have created tremendous impact particularly on the Cameroonian society. The authors source deep into the texts’ history, politics, ontology, anthropology and sociology, more than any study on a single author in Cameroon has done, to reveal among other ills, the extremes of corruption, power abuse and marginalization that have characterised Cameroon’s political scene since independence. Bole Butake’s ingenuity in crafting his plays with cultural symbols, oral tradition and other techniques of dramaturgy, which apart from critiquing the political ills, displays the cultural wealth of Cameroon, is skilfully brought out by the authors. One is struck by the depth of the details in the presentation of the playwright and his art, details that must be seen as indispensable for understanding the socio-cultural and political complexities of Cameroon in the postcolonial context. Dealing with a literature that is relatively new on the international scene, the book highlights the complex artistic peculiarities of Anglophone Cameroon Literature viewed from the perspective of a single author. It is thoughtfully written and will be of interest, especially, to the postcolonial students and researchers.