Mission to Kala (originally titled Mission terminée) is Mongo Beti’s classic comic novel, which won the 1958 Prix Sainte-Beuve. The story follows Jean-Marie Medza, a student who returns home expecting humiliation after failing his high school exams. Village elders mistake his Western schooling for absolute wisdom, so they send him to the remote village of Kala to retrieve a runaway wife. At Kala, the villagers treat Medza like a visiting celebrity. The elders grill him with sharp questions that prove his colonial education largely useless in daily village life, while the local youth view him as a sophisticated city man. The village chief tricks Medza into an arranged marriage before he completes his diplomatic mission. Medza completes his task, but his time in Kala alters his perspective. He realises his Western schooling stripped away his cultural identity. He confronts his tyrannical father and leaves his home to travel as a permanent wanderer.
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