Francis Bebey is a writer and musical performer, winner of the Grand Prix Littéraire d’Afrique Noire (1967). Born in Douala, he attended primary and secondary schools in Cameroon. He was granted a scholarship to study in France, where he graduated from high school and received a Bachelor’s Degree in English from the Sorbonne. In 1957, he was a member of the francophone staff of Radio-Ghana in Accra. In 1958, he was trained in radio broadcasting in France and later in New York. In 1961, he entered the department of communication at UNESCO and was appointed chief of the music program in the department of culture.
In 1963, He began giving musical performance and undertook a study on modern African music while touring African countries. This work was published in 1967 and won him the qualification of musicologist from some critics. In 1974, he resigned from UNESCO and now devotes his life to writing and performing around the world. Francis Bebey has developed an original style with a...
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Works by Bebey
Bebey, Francis. 1963. La radio-diffusion en Afrique noire. Paris: Saint Paul.
———. Le fils d’Agatha Moudio. Yaoundé, Clé, 1967. Grand Prix Littéraire de l’Afrique noire. (Trans. Agatha Moudio’s Son, Ibadan: Heinemman, 1971).
———. 1969. Musique de l’Afrique. Paris: Horizons de France.
———. 1970. Embarras et Cie. Yaoundé: Clé.
———. 1972. Trois petits cireurs. Yaoundé: Clé.
———. 1973. La poupée Ashanti. Yaoundé: Clé.
———. 1977. Le roi Albert d’Effidi. Yaoundé: Clé.
———. 1982. Concert pour un vieux masque. Paris: Harmattan.
———. 1989. La lune dans un seau tout rouge. Paris: Hatier.
———. 1992. Le ministre et le griot. Paris: Sepia.
———. Propos sur l’écriture et la musique. In Black accents: Writing in French from Africa, Mauritius and the Carribean, ed. Janet and Roger Little, 1997. London: Grant and Cutler.
Bibliography
Ackard, Josette. 1985. Le roman cemerounais et la critique. Paris: Silex.
Bebey Kidy (dir.). 2002. Francis Bebey : l’homme orchestre. Paris: L’Harmattan. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidi_Bebey
Bjornson, Richard. 1991. The African quest for freedom and identity: Cameroonian writing and the national experience. Bloomington, Ia [etc.]: Indiana University Press, cop.
Eno-Belinga, Baratte Thérèse. 1978. Ecrivains, cinéastes et artistes camerounais, biobibliographie. Yaoundé: Centre d’édition et de production pour l’enseignement et la recherche.
Ibnlfassi, Laila. 1996. African francophone writing: A critical introduction. Oxford: Berg.
Mukobo, Manzanza, and Ngabala Bubengo. 1990. La tradition negro-africaine vue par Mongo Beti et Francis Bebey. Annales aequatoria 11: 327–349.
Ndachi Tagne. 1993. Francis Bebey. Paris: L’Harmattan.
Rial, Jacques. 1972. Littérature camerounaise de langue française. Lausanne: Payot.
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Obongui, R., Mangeon, A. (2021). Bebey, Francis. In: Mudimbe, V.Y., Kavwahirehi, K. (eds) Encyclopedia of African Religions and Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2068-5_53
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