Rainbow Colors: Literary Ethno-topographies of MauritiusThe narratives under consideration in Rainbow Colors depict Mauritius's history of competing colonial forces, describe its intricate social geography of free and forced migrations, and portray the anxieties of mixed race persons and cultures in postcolonies.Through a rigorous analysis of novels from Loys Masson's L'etoile et la clef (1945) to Ananda Devi's Moi, l'interdite (2000), this study argues that there is no single grand narrative of cultural hybridity and ethnic pluralism in Mauritius. By conceptualizing literature as the overlapping space of ethnic-cultural realities, national and transnational identities, and a poetics of alterity, Rainbow Colors explores how different literary ethno-topographies of Mauritius are produced at this intersection. This original work considers Mauritian writing in French in its own right and not as a minor literature within the Francophone tradition. Furthermore, while significant monographs on ethnicity and nation have been published on the African and Caribbean novel (in English and in French), this is the first such single-authored book-length study on Mauritian novels to date. |
Contents
Coloring the Rainbow An Introduction | 1 |
Part I | 17 |
Coolie Heroism Nationalism Postnationalism and the Romance of Indenture Immigration | 19 |
Walking on Fire Religion Gender and Identity in Ananda Devis Le voile de Draupadi | 47 |
Part II | 61 |
Ambivalently Abnormal Metis as Racial Grotesque in Loys Massons Letoile et la clef and Carl de Souzas Le sang de lAnglais | 63 |
Colors of Shame Metissage and Desire in MarieTherese Humberts A Vautre bout de moi | 85 |
Part III | 101 |
Remembering to Forget War and Domesticity in Marcelle Lagesses Le vingt floreal au matin | 103 |
Drifting Pauls and Wandering Virginies French Creole Identities in JeanMarie Le Clezios La quarantaine | 125 |
POST FACE | 143 |
Trodden Rainbow Toward an Ethics of Reading Violence in Ananda Devis Moi Vinterdite | 145 |
| 159 | |
| 169 | |
About the Author | |
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Common terms and phrases
African ambivalent Ananda Devi Anjali Anne Anne's argues Barnèse Bernardin de Saint blanc bout de moi British Bruni century Champelair chapter clef Clézio's colonial color coolie coolitude Coulombe Creole cultural Devi's ethnic ethnisle spaces Félicité floréal au matin Franco-Mauritian Francophone French French Creole gender Hawkins Hindu Hinduism identity Île de France Île Plate Indian Ocean Indo-Mauritian interaction island Jean-Georges Prosper Khal Torabully l'autre bout L'étoile l'interdite l'Océan Indien La quarantaine labor language Léon Léon's Maison Blanche Marcel Cabon Marie-Thérèse Humbert Mauritian literature Mauritian society Mauritius metaphor métis métissage métisse mixed-race Mouna myth Nadège Nadège's narrative narrator nation novel numbers Paris Paul et Virginie plantation political postcolonial Poudre d'Or quarantaine racial grotesque reader representation rochers de Poudre role Rosélia Saint Pierre's sang de l'Anglais sense settler slave social St Bart story symbolic textual Torabully tradition village vingt floréal violence voile de Draupadi voyage vulnerability women