Martinique (France) / All works
Novel
Le Nègre et l'Amiral
Not translated into English
Raphaël Confiant · 1988
Synopsis
In Fort-de-France, from 1939, life in Morne Pichevin, a working-class district, follows the news of the war given by the radio, then the Vichy regime imposed on the island by Admiral Robert. Rigobert, the district's tough guy, who speaks only Creole, cuts the figure of a maroon there. Amédée Mauville, a former Latin teacher, leaves his bourgeois life to write about the island and becomes the lover of Philomène, a prostitute.
Context
After several books in Creole, this novel is the first that Confiant wrote in French. It came out from Grasset in 1988 and received the Prix Antigone that same year, then in 1989 the Caribbean literary prize of the Association des écrivains de langue française. The novel describes the period that Martinicans call “an tan Robè”, from 1940 to 1943, and the forms of resistance it gave rise to, including the departure of volunteers for the neighbouring English islands to join the dissidence. Le Livre de poche reissued it in 1993.
Who it is for
For understanding what the Second World War was on an island of the Antilles, seen from a working-class district.
Prizes and reception
Two literary prizes on its publication, in 1988 and in 1989; the novel was reissued in paperback five years later.
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