Polyte , Savinien Mérédac, 2011, editions Jean-Claude Lattes for the new edition. Paper received through a partnership between BOB (Blog-O-Book) and the Penguin Press. Thank you to them!
Written in 1926, this book is considered the masterpiece of literature Mauritius. It was lost for many years, then rediscovered and republished.
Savinien Mérédac, whose real name was Auguste Esnouf, was born at Port Louis in 1880. He leads, alongside his job as an engineer, an intense literary life. He founded a magazine, publishes essays and a book for children, then in 1926 Polyte . He died in 1939 leaving several manuscripts, including a newspaper (editor's notes).
Polyte is Lavictoire Hippolyte, a fisherman in sixties, gruff and authoritarian, who decides to marry Rebecca Sansdésir, much younger than himself, to ensure that the offspring's previous wife has not given before dying.
When Rebecca became pregnant, suddenly Polyte has doubts about his paternity. Suspicious and jealous, he ignores her child, Samuel, to his 15 years where the outcome is bound to be dramatic ...
Written in flavor, this novel astonishes with its modernist who never makes us think that the action takes place in the early twentieth century.
The author intersperses his account of Mauritian Creole, which, if not totally comprehensible to the average reader, is tamed by its lilting sounds and images live. Moreover, even the French found in this book is often imaged ... There is sometimes a little something Quebecois slang (Astheure / A-c 't'hère)!
- A-c't'hère, will take a small bucket in the corner, where even then, we've earned it! Look, I "spitting cotton"! (P.83)
Who has had the opportunity to travel to Mauritius , it is nice to see all magical names of villages and places like Grand Gaube (where the action takes place mainly in the north of the island), Flat Island, Round Island, the corner-of-sight, Triolet, Pointe aux Fruits ... Magical places which today are popular holiday destinations for honeymooners ...
But Polyte , this enchanting is not just as decoration, since all human wickedness and bitterness are found in the character of Hippolytus, who in addition to being so morbid jealousy, hate violently population " Malbars " a derogatory term (in Mauritius, as the neighboring island of Reunion, it is widely used in common parlance) designating the Indians in Mauritius, and demonstrated a very assertive racism against them.
Morale keeps us in suspense throughout the novel that reads very quickly indeed. Some characters have beautiful light through this story, the shadow Polyte attacker keeps coming back to haunt the pages of this wonderful literary discovery.
[Lætitia The Clech]
Mood Music: These New Puritans , Hidden (Domino Records, 2010)
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