Short stories
Lucarne
Not translated into English
Jean-Luc Raharimanana · 1996
Synopsis
Twelve stories that show Madagascar not as an island of golden sands but as a place of suffering and poverty, down to the streets of the city. The characters are outcasts, doomed to wandering and violence, and yet clinging to life; here and there in the stories, nature, the sea and love reclaim their rights. The language is that of the tale told aloud, at once lyrical and elliptical.
Context
The collection appeared in 1996 from Le Serpent à plumes, four years after a first book, Le Lépreux, and was reissued in paperback in the Motifs series in 1999. Africultures hailed in 1998, together with that of Abdourahman Waberi, a body of work giving new impetus to African literature in French, and Afrik sees the author as a master of ellipsis. Two years later, Rêves sous le linceul received the Grand Prix littéraire de Madagascar of the Adelf.
Who it is for
For discovering a Malagasy prose in French, violent and lyrical, far from the tourist image of the island.
Prizes and reception
L. W. Miampika notes a choppy, abrupt and vehement style, through which echoes of Baudelaire pass.
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