Power Dialectics and the Crisis of Identity in Anglophone Cameroonian Poetry: The Poetic Vision of Gahlia Gwangwa’a and Bate Besong

Abstract

The concept of power dialectics in African literature accounts for the tension, contradiction and confusion that have resulted in identity crisis, alienation and social exclusiveness. Guided by the socialist realism of the Lukacsian-Marxist paradigm, this paper contends that the power dialectics in the Cameroonian society is responsible for the crisis of identity, alienation and social exclusion. In trying to recreate poetry that tyrannizes the spirit, Gwangwa’a and Besong construe that only the destruction of totalitarianism and neocolonialism can usher in justice, equity, equality, democracy and a sense of belonging in a society bedeviled by corruption, tribalism, dictatorship and moral decadence.