Bate Besong’s early plays are post-modernist explorations steeped in aesthetic, historical and contemporary ideological experiences. The Most Cruel Death of the Talkative Zombie depicts brutality, bestiality and terror as inextricable from historical allegory. Beasts of No Nation, his most controversial play, dramatizes a failed attempt at revolution, and Requiem for the Last Kaiser celebrates the power of collective action in redefining people’s existence.