MBELLA SONNE DIPOKO: Prurient Writer?

Cameroonian writer Mbella Sonne Dipoko (1936 - 2009) was mainly depicted as an erotic writer of sorts; whereas the simple truth is that he was a very good novelist and poet.

His novels in particular disturbed a number of critics, reviewers and readers because of the rather explicit sexual content therein. That was way back in the 60s when some felt that a "serious, committed African writer" should not dwell too much on such things.

As Paul Theroux suggested then decades ago, African writers were supposed to write "about solid tribal wisdom, ghoulish rituals and the inscrutable cruelty of colonialism - not to mention the inclusion of semi-profound proverbs and the utterances of very old men with dry skin and wizened faces."

Yet, even way back in the 60s (and early seventies) other distinguished African writers wrote about sex in some detail in their works; for example Ayi Kwei Armah (especially in Fragments), Chinua Achebe (A man of the People), and even Soyinka. Naiwu Osahon (in Sex is a Nigger) was more or less in a special class of his own.

A lot of hypocrisy has always surrounded sex, in general. Nowadays many aficionados of literature would worry about some "explicit sex" in published works; though of course even an acclaimed novelist like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been panned by some critics for "excessive sex" in her works.

 But back to the 60s when Mbella Sonne Dipoko was at his peak as a writer. Unashamedly he admitted that he personally loved sex, and enjoyed writing about it in his well-written books. In a rather famous interview (with Cameroon Life magazine) Dipoko said:

“I became, for many years what you might call a travelling lover, a dreamer searching for God between the women’s thighs – those days, when I was at the height of my intimate powers.

“You had to see me! I was like an angel stuffing recoilless erections into just where they are most needed – into the fleshy folds of winter! But I did it with rosy summers too, and each divine thrust was like stuffing your women with yet another trump card of desire! And, there was no Aids stalking through the world just to scare sensible chaps off sex…”

-         T. Ebounge (courtesy, Black African Literature)