After obtaining his GCE A Level at St. Bedes Secondary School in Kom, Besong was admitted to the University of Calabar where he published his maiden collection of poems titled Polyphemous Detainee and Other Skulls in 1980 before he graduated.
While at the university, Bate Besong and Ba'bila Mutia founded Oracle, a journal of poetry edited by students.
Realising that his emerging reputation as a budding writer was giving him recognision as a Nigerian and compromising his Cameroonian identity, Besong returned to Cameroon after completing his MA.
[6] Besong was described by Pierre Fandio as “one of the most representative and regular writers of what might be referred to as the second generation of the emergent Cameroonian literature in English".
[7] On July 18, 2008, Niyi Osundare paid tribute to Besong with a speech given during the 2008 EduArt Awards for Cameroonian Literature in English.