THE PROFESSOR AND STUDENT WHO NEVER MET IN CLASS: TRIBUTE TO FALLEN PROFESSOR BOLE BUTAKE
When I cited Bole Butake—among other writers—as a source of inspiration /influence in my writing career (in an online interview granted Adam Levon Brown) on 19 September 2016, I never knew that was the last time I was using his name without tags like “fallen”, “late”, “deceased”, “departed”, “posthumous”… I couldn’t imagine that was the last time I would refer to Prof. in present tenses.
Professor Bole Butake meant so much to me: professor, mentor, source of literary inspiration, father… I first heard his name in Form Three, secondary school, when we studied his collection of plays Lake God and Other Plays. I met him personally in Yaoundé in 2009 when I entered ENS Yaoundé and the University of Yaoundé 1. In my usual thirst for knowledge and wisdom from great scholars and writers of his calibre, I quickly approached Prof. Butake and he received me with irresistible humility and fatherly warmth. Prof., would discuss academics and scholarships with me, receive and chat with me in his Mbankolo residence, read and comment on my works like my unpublished play Mandela, introduce me to his wife and children; I would follow him from church to his home…Curiously enough, Prof and I never met in a classroom in the strict sense of a fall-walled classroom! We always met in the larger classrooms of life’s university!
Professor Bole Butake, who hailed from Nkor in Noni Subdivision, Cameroon, was a great scholar and prolific writer who rose to fame through hard work. He lost his two parents within one week, aged six, thereby becoming an orphan at that tender age! As a lone child, he relied on hard work and benefited from the support of benefactors. His education took him to the upper echelons of society. After primary school in St Patrick Primary School Nkor, he went through Sacred Heart College, CCAST Bambili, University of Yaoundé (UniYao) to Leeds University in the UK where he got his PhD. Thereafter, he lectured at UniYao till his retirement in 2012, having risen to full professor of Performing Arts and African Literature. He also headed the African Literature Department at UniYao for some time.
Professor Butake has not only been a great literary scholar, but also an internationally-acclaimed writer who started off as a poet, although his fame came through drama. His poetry began to appear in The Mould –a literary magazine of a literary club with the same name—which he, alongside other scholars, created at UniYao. He was also instrumental in the creation of the Flame Players, a drama troupe that made many crowd-pulling performances of some first major plays in Cameroon Anglophone Literature. In collaboration with others like Bate Besong, Ndumbe Eyoh, Kitts Mbeboh, Nalova Lyonga, Edward Ako, Tala Kashim, etc., he worked for the creation of the Anglophone Cameroon Writers’ Association (ACWA). In his writings, Butake always took sides with the oppressed masses and strongly satirised all forms of oppressive leadership. Both subtly and explicitly, he addressed the Anglophone Problem in his works. His plays also promoted national integration by uplifting intertribal marriage among Cameroonians. Some of his plays depict the aftermath of the 1986 Lake Nyos Disaster. He lampooned “unprofessional” uniformed men. He also explored the centrality of women in traditional African societies. Interestingly, he “refused to be lapiroed” into the conscience-divorced political manoeuvres of Cameroon!
His achievements and legacy are glaring and long-lasting. He authored, edited or co-authored many literary works: The Rape of Michelle (1984), Lake God (1986), The Survivors (1989), And palm Wine Will Flow (1990), Shoes and Four Men in Arms (1993), Dance of the Vampires (1995), Zintgraff and the Battle of Mankon (2003), Family Saga (2005), Betrothal Without Libation (2005) and Cameroon Anthology of Poetry (2010). He is credited for his role in the creation of The Flame Players, ACWA and The Mould. He was one of the pioneers of participatory-approach theatre for development in Cameroon. In 1986 he participated in the prestigious International Writing Program at Iowa University (USA) and won the Eko Prize for Literature in 2011. He is recognised widely on the global literary landscape. World Encyclopaedia of Theatre recognises him alongside other African dramatists like Wole Soyinka and Nguggi Wanthiogo as “distinguished writers…whose works have made a breakthrough internationally” (p.25). For Encyclopaedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English, he “…is the most widely-known Cameroonian dramatist outside his homeland and a powerful successor to Sankie Maimo’s strand of traditional realism” (p.415).
© Kenneth Toah Nsah (Nsah Mala), 08 October 2016
Université de Perpignan Via Domitia, France
