2019 Volume 7 Pages 143-161
After World War II, between France and Cameronian ‘nationalists’ happened a conflict called the ‘hidden war’ by some historians. This war has been truly concealed by either post-colonial Cameroon or former colonial state France. In consideration of this epistemological problem, this paper tries to clarify different approaches taken by Cameroonian writers to write the novel about this hidden past. Under the condition that the state define what should be the historical truth, their writings would be taken for the intervention against the History made by the state.
To this purpose, we’ll verify at first Mongo Beti’s political position. After being forbidden to publish a political reportage about conditions of colonial domination, he took, in the 1970s, his novel to be a way to say euphemistically those conditions.
We’ll then point out two noticeable points found in novels written by writers who were born after the independence of the country. First point is that they emphasize the role of women in the struggle for independence. Second one is that they often choose confidential conversations as the platform for their stories.
Finally, we’ll discuss Max Robe’s Confidences which has these two characters at the same time. This novel calls into question the intertwining between the past of war and the identity of the author who lives in a post-colonial society. We’ll assert then that author’s plural identities would be able to carry on the past in a different way from those who want to make some memories their own properties.
