King Lazarus Author:Mongo Beti All was well in Essazem Village until that fateful days in 1948 when Chief Essomba Mendouga was stricken by a seemingly terminal case of satyriasis. For years the Bantu chief had enjoyed unfailing health and unflagging appetites. But now fear shook the native streets, and panic ravaged the French colonial establishment, unwilling to part with it... more »s staunch, if polygamous, prop.
Complications abound when the chief suddenly recovers and is converted to Christianity by the local Roman Catholic missionary. Temporarily insane and freshly baptized, the newly risen Lazarus piously chooses monogamy with his youngest and loveliest wife as tribal hell breaks loose and twenty-two wifely rejects, their assorted relatives, and outraged tribesmen stage a comic-opera revolt -- in real blood.
Mongo Beti, a Cameroonian Bantu, strikes out with pungent, slashing wit at a conniving, sanctimonious Catholic Church, obsolete tribal customs, and neanderthal French colonialism in the lustiest, most deadly accurate satire ever to come out of Africa.« less