num_pages: 192
description: Like its predecessor,  Mission to Kala, Mongo Beti's new novel  King Lazarus centres round the changing customs and mores of a Bantu tribe under French administration. The year is 1948: the hereditary Chief of the Essazam clan is, to all appearances, dying. As his life has been one long round of eating, drinking, and nocturnal exercises among his twenty-three wives, this is not, perhaps, altogether surprising. But his illness worries the Administration: he is a staunch prop of the European Establishment. An even more dangerous situation is produced when the Chief, against all expectations, very suddenly recovers — and the local Roman Catholic missionary, Le Guen, persuades him to renounce his tribal ways and adopt Christianity. (Introduction to 1960, Frederick Muller Ltd. Edition.)
language: English
title: King Lazarus: A Novel
titlecomplete: King Lazarus: A Novel (African Writers Series, 77)
genres: Africa, African Literature, Fiction
ratings_count: 20
publisher: Heinemann