"Bénarès", by the Mauritian Barlen Pyamootoo

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By: Tirthankar Chanda Follow

The Mauritian Barlen Pyamootoo is a singular novelist. His books tell of "geographies of souls," he likes to say. Novelist, but also filmmaker, editor and many other things at the same time, Barlen Pyamootoo became known in 1999 by publishing his first novel Bénraès, a Beckettian "road novel" which renews the thought of the roots and the desire so dear to the writers of Mauritius for almost three centuries.

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Bénarès is an important novel. Released in 1999, Bénarès marks a break in the rich Mauritian literature which has almost two centuries of history behind it. The tradition began, we remember, with the famous Paul and Virginie by Bernardin St-Pierre, a mythical novel of love and origins whose shadow has long hovered over Mauritian literary creation. Resolutely modern in his writing and inspiration, Barlen Pyamootoo cuts the umbilical cord with tradition to situate new Mauritian literature in the wake of Beckett, Ionesco and Kafka, emphasizing the adventure of writing rather than on writing adventure. It was this approach of a literary rather than a storyteller that won the support of the publishers of L'Olivier, who had received the manuscript by post. “  The book surprised us with the disconcerting simplicity of its intrigue. We were also enthusiastic about the world of Barlen and the voice of this writer with such a hypnotic flow  ”, confided to me, a few years ago, the editor who worked on Barlen's texts at L'Olivier. Critics have also underlined the stripping of this writing, and its total absence of exoticism. We are far from the stereotypes of paradise Mauritius, conveyed by tour operators responsible for selling the country to vacationers in the North in search of exoticism.

► Also read the interview : Barlen Pyamootoo: “Bénarès was first of all a cry of love! "

A modernist approach, characteristic of the work of Barlen Pyamooto

First there are the titles. Pyamootoo's novels are recognizable among a thousand by their titles which are anything but programmatic. These are word games, which suggest the theme, leaving the reader the opportunity to work their way through associations of ideas and subtle correspondences. This is the case, for example, of Bénarès, which causes readers to take the wrong route by directing them towards the Indian city on the banks of the Ganges, while the Bénarès, which is mentioned in the book, is a lost town in Mauritius. It is much more prosaic than the legendary Indian city where the Hindus converge to be sure to go to paradise. "  They sometimes make a long and painful journey, just to die in Bénarès,  " recalls one of the characters. As inaccurate as it is technically, this reference to the Indian city means that the whole story is haunted on a second level by the clichés and mythologies linked to the Indian city. Their weight is added to the moral and social uneasiness that the novel gives us to read through its theme of failed meetings.

Sexual encounters

The search for sexual encounters is the starting point for Bénarès . The novel reports the trip to the Mauritian night of two friends who left for Port-Louis in search of prostitutes to liven up their evenings. The two friends end up finding girls, but will they be able to fill the frustrations of the two friends? We will not know. The novel does not say if the body-to-body announced will really take place, but the return by car to Bénarès, turns into an oppressive closed door between four lonely souls. Their broken conversations, the landscape plunged into the passing night, translate the nothingness of the lives of the protagonists or life itself. Told with overwhelming simplicity, without emphasis and without the search for exoticism, this failed quest for the characters also makes us hear in subtext the comeback rage of a Mauritian youth in search of ideal, who is bored deeply, especially in inland villages left fallow.

Bénarès , a "  road-novel  "

Halfway between the Jack Kerouac "  road-novel  " and the African initiation story, Bénarès has established itself as a classic of French-speaking literature because of its stripped-down, demanding, minimalist writing. His short sentences, his sophisticated construction and his concern to tell a story less than to link here and elsewhere, make Barlen Pyamootoo a formidable cartographer of souls in pain. We read the 90 pages of Benares in one go. It is an experience of catharsis as few novelists know how to offer it.

Bénarès , by Barlen Pyamootoo. Éditions de l'Olivier, 1999, 91 pages.

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