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Notes on the Playwrights
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127 Notes on the Playwrights Victor Epie Ngome 1947 – Victor Epie Ngome was born on October 10, 1947 in Muabi, a village in the western slope of the Muanenguba ranges of Cameroon. A versatile individual, he excels in almost everything he chooses to do. After reading Agriculture in CCAST Bambili, he later on switched to a different profession, journalism, which led him to the following universities in search of higher academic diplomas: University of Western Ontario, University of London, Michigan State University in Lansing, and University of Yaoundé Faculty of Letters and Social Sciences. He has held successive posts of responsibility including Head of English Language Broadcasts in Radio Cameroon; Press Attaché for Cameroon Shipping Lines. Deputy Editor-in-Chief of CRTV Radio, and recently Scientific and Cultural Affairs Editor for CRTV Television. He has worked with the BBC African Service in Bush House, London. A composer and a choir-master Victor Epie Ngome has written four other unpublished plays. He heads an NGO concerned with Human rights. Bole Butake 1947 – Born on July 28, 1947 in Noni in Bui Division of the North-West Province of Cameroon, Bole Butake attended Sacred Heart College Mankon, Bamenda, CCAST Bambili, the University of Yaoundé, and the University of Leeds. He holds the following academic diplomas: B.A.; M.A. English Literature and a Doctorate from the University of Yaoundé. An outspoken social and literary critic Butake is now Professor of Theatre Arts in the University of Yaoundé. Working in close collaboration with the University of Yaoundé Theatre and the Flame Players, Butake has taken his plays to jammed theatre halls in the major towns of the Anglophone regions in Cameroon. But above all, his plays have been staged in the capital city of Yaoundé; one of them (Shoes and Four Men in Arms) was staged by the Flame Players in the three German cities of Leverkusen, Gelsenkirschen and 128 Education of the Deprived: Anglophone Cameroon Literary Drama Bayreuth where it was well-received. Bole Butake has also published short stories and some poetry. He has done some work with the Baka pigmies. Bate Besong 1954 – 2007 Bate Besong was born in Calabar (Nigeria) on 8th May 1954 of Cameroonian parentage and educated in St. Bede’s College Ashing, Hope Waddell Institute Calabar, University of Calabar, and University of Ibadan. His poetry and criticism have been published in several international journals. He is the 1992 Winner of ANA Literature (Drama) Prize. His publications include The Most Cruel Death of the Talkative Zombie (1986) , Beasts of No Nation (1990), Requiem for the Last Kaiser (1991) , The Banquet (1994), Just above Cameroon (1998) (poetry), and Change Waka & His Man Sawa Boy (2001). Bate Besong’s imaginative works, polemical essays and public pronouncements reveal him as an intrepid and irrepressible social critic concerned with the Cameroonian commonweal. He was briefly detained in 1991 in Yaoundé shortly after his fiery play Beasts of No Nation was premiered. A very popular lecturer with university students because of his out-spoken and daring nature, Bate Besong, PhD, taught Dramatic Literature and Performing Arts in the Department of English at the University of Buea, Cameroon until his death on March 8, 2007. Nkemngong John Nkengasong 1959 – Nkemngong John Nkengasong was born in Lewoh Fondom in the South-west Province of Cameroon. An experienced teacher of English language and literature, he was until recently, the President of the South-West Association of Teachers of English (SWATE), and an Assistant Chief Examiner for Advanced Level Literature with the Cameroon G.C.E. Board. A well-known critic and poet, he teaches literature in the Department of English, University of Yaoundé I. A holder of Doctorat de 3e Cycle and a PhD, Nkengasong is also author of A Stylistic Approach to Literary Appreciation (1999); Across the Mongolo (2004), W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot: Myths and Poetics of Modernism (2005) and The Widow’s Might (2006); more imaginative works by him are in the pipeline. He is now Associate Professor. ...