The Dictator-Novel in Cameroonian Literature: Mongo Beti's Perpetua and the Habit of Unhappiness and John Nkemngong Nkengasong's Across the Mongolo

This article examines Mongo Beti's Perpetua and the Habit of Unhappiness (1978) and John Nkemngong Nkengasong's Across the Mongolo (2004) as examples of the burgeoning dictator-novel genre in the Cameroonian cultural context. Both works historicize, in varying but interesting ways, Ahmadou Babatoura Ahidjo's despotic conduct of affairs in post-independence Cameroon. They focus on the figure of the country's first president and the autocratic nature of his rule while prodding their readers "into a critical consciousness that would enable them to liberate themselves from the new forms of oppression being imposed upon them" (Bjornson 326). To understand this specific capacity, the article situates the works within the predominantly Latin American tradition of the dictator-novel, albeit with specific implications for Cameroon and Africa. It draws on tenets of genre theory, together with Michel Foucault's discourses on power, social discipline, and conformity in Discipline and Punish and Achille Mbembe's insightful readings on the "commandement" in On the Postcolony and "Necropolitics."