Art and Political Thought in Bole Butake

By (author) Emmanuel Ngwang, Kenneth Usongo

Hardback - £72.00

Publication date:

30 September 2016

Length of book:

140 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9781498538107

The book 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.

The study opens with an overview of the historical and social milieu that feeds Butake’s imagination and the introduction is followed by an interview of the playwright in which he explains his mission as a writer. The next two chapters appraise the political symbolism of Butake’s plays and chapter five undertakes a comparison of the colonial legacy and the culture of corruption in Butake’s Lake God and The Rape ofMichelle.

Women in Butake’s imaginative universe play a non-negligible role in change. They are portrayed as political and social activists in their challenge to autocratic rule. This is the leitmotif of chapter six, which highlights the contribution of women towards political change in Cameroon.

In chapters seven and eight, the focus is on articulating the cultural signification of Butake’s plays in terms of political change. Concomitantly, these chapters also demonstrate Butake’s seamless incorporation of elements of oral literature in his drama, as he interpolates proverbs, divinations and other elements of orality in his work. Chapter nine of the book points out how Butake foregrounds the character traits of his protagonists against the backdrop of traditional Noni religion as well as Christianity. Thus, the bigotry and belligerence of both the Fon and Father Leo in 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.