Extract

Part 3 Adaptation and Translation in Postcolonial Writing Claire Bisdorff ‘Ecrivain? Qu’est-ce qu’un écrivain?’ Oraliture Translated in Maryse Condé’s Traversée de la Mangrove Traversée de la Mangrove, a novel written by Guadeloupean writer Maryse Condé, was first published by Mercure de France in 1989. The plot traces the narratives of the inhabitants of Rivière au Sel, a small rural community in the heart of the Guadeloupean forest, as they mourn a murdered man, Sancher, a stranger who had come into their lives a few years earlier. The narrative focuses tour à tour on dif ferent characters of the community, with each of the twenty chapters focussing on – and some of them told from – the perspective of one community member. Sancher’s character func- tions as a web-like fil conducteur for all the other characters in the novel, who seem linked to him in an organic, rhizomatic way. In an elaborate, jigsaw-like construction, their memories interlock to form a vivid portrait of their community. Maryse Condé’s unique style and storytelling abili- ties playfully inscribe the act of writing diegetically into the text. Whilst the male characters try to establish an artistic legacy for themselves, the women forge connections of genealogical and filial order. The characters are concerned with what they leave behind, with the dif ference their pas- sage on earth makes in the fabric of their community. In this study, I shall look at the implications of such connections for the transcription of memory. This search...