The fact that Mongo Beti, a brilliant and praiseworthy [novelist] …, has broken his silence with another important novel, should not be a news item which provokes great surprise. That the main theme of this author's most recent literary offering, Perpétue, treats of the victimization of the modern African woman in today's independent Africa, is a noteworthy event which should arouse the interest and curiosity of most scholars of African literature. In short, Mongo Beti is taking a critical look at well-known and accepted African traditions, in his homeland as well as in greater Black Africa. (p. 301)

In painting such a depressing picture of a new Africa which has emerged from decades of foreign misrule, Mongo Beti seems to have taken up the protest begun by another internationally known West African of French expression and author of the explosive novel Dramouss, Camara Laye from Guinea. Allusions to a...