[In La ruine presque cocasse d'un polichinelle] Mongo Béti again evokes admiration for the patriot Ruben Um Nyobé, leader of the opposition in Cameroun, whose memory has been preserved in at least two of the author's previous novels (Perpétue and [Remember Ruben] …), and he also continues an account of life under the regime of the insensitive tyrant Baba Toura, a mysterious President of the Republic whose evil shadow hovered over the events in the two previous novels. Toura's administration, which fosters famine, misery, persecution and corruption in the wake of African independence, is perpetuated by evil characters in the novels against whom heroic protagonists struggle constantly so that justice may prevail.

The present novel recounts the adventures of Mor-Zamba, who leaves the capital of the republic accompanied by two other faithful Rubenists, Mor-Kinda and Evariste, charged with the task of organizing the resistance…. The novel takes...