Patrice Kayo
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Patrice Kayo is an African scholar, poet, and author born in 1942 in Bandjoun, West Province, Cameroon. He is also known for his radical opposition to Paul Biya's political regime, and his advocacy for freedom of speech and human rights.
He served as chairman of the National Association of Poets and Writers of Cameroon from 1969 to 1981, and was one of the founders of the International Federation of French-speaking Writers established in 1982 in Quebec, Canada.
Patrice Kayo was born and raised in an aristocratic Bamileke family. After spending a few years at the Catholic seminary of Melong, he enrolled in Lycée Joss in Douala. Upon graduation, the young Kayo would be influenced by the ideas of Che Guevara, Kwame Nkrumah, Martin Luther King, Jr, and get hired as a reporter for a leftist newspaper in colonial Cameroon. During that time, his activism would lead to his arrest and condamnation to death by a Military tribunal in Bafoussam. He was charged with support to the armed rebellion by writing a poem in honor of Ruben Um Nyobe, leading figure of the anti-imperialist fight in Cameroon, assassinated by French troops in 1958. The charges would later be dropped, and the verdict annulled.
After these events, Patrice Kayo obtained his B.A and Master of Arts in Education from the University of Yaounde, then a Ph.D from the University of Paris, Sorbonne, in France.
Follower of Frantz Fanon and Aimé Césaire, Patrice Kayo is a promoter of the African literature.
He has been married for thirty five years to Celine, a high school teacher and is the father of six children. Since his retirement in 2000, he has been reported to be living in his Bandjoun farm, where he still writes.
[edit] Some of Patrice Kayo publications.
-Les fetes tragiques (Novel, Presses Universitaires d'Afrique, 2007)
-Tout le long des saisons (Novel, Editions CLE, 2001)
-Anthologie de la poesie camerounaise (Collection of Poetry, Presses Universitaires de Yaounde, 2000)
-Fables des Montagnes (Tales for children, Editions CLE, 1998) For ages 12 to 14.
-Chansons populaires bamileke (Imprimerie Saint Paul, 1996)
-En attendant l'Aurore (Collection of Poetry, CLE, 1988)
-Les sauterelles (Novel, Editions CLE, 1986)
-Dechirements (Silex, 1983)
-Fables et devinettes de mon enfance (Tales for children, Editions CLE, 1979)
