Haitian Peterson Désir wins RFI-AUF Young Writing Award
With his new “L'île muse”, the Haitian student Peterson Désir, 20, won the RFI-AUF 2020 Young Writing Prize. © BANJ
Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow
5 mins
With his new “L'île muse”, the Haitian student Peterson Désir, 20, won the RFI-AUF Young Writing Prize on Tuesday, October 27, created to encourage the writing of short stories of French expression.
The Audience Prize for this second edition was awarded to Haitian Louendy Chery for "The tiny giant".
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“
Participating in a competition of this magnitude is a big challenge, but I said to myself
: whoever will not try anything, will not have anything.
So, I sent my text
”, exclaims Peterson Désir over the phone, with the fervor of a young laureate recently crowned.
Compose a short story, 8,000 characters maximum, and start with the first words of the second book by Franco-Afghan writer Atiq Rahimi: "
Am I in the dark or have my eyes closed
?"
Maybe both
”, this is the challenge launched by the Agence universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) to students from its 1,007 member universities and higher education establishments in 119 countries and broadcast on RFI.
"The day I was born"
Peterson Désir stood out among the 673 works in competition.
The jury, chaired by the 2008 Goncourt Atiq Rahimi Prize, congratulated the winner for his great spirit of freedom.
Indeed, where the Franco-Afghan writer had evoked in
The Thousand Houses of Dreams and Terror
the history of Afghanistan and the fate of five characters who try to escape terror through madness, the young Haitian decides to cut short all mimicry.
He extends Rahimi's incipit with his own dazzling phrases: “
Frankly, I don't care.
Darkness knows me.
She witnessed my birth.
The day I was born, three people died in the operating theater due to a power cut.
"
For the young Haitian writer, “
the greatest constraint was to respect the
8,000 signs.
Saying what you want in
8,000 characters is not very easy.
It was also a big challenge to pursue Atiq Rahimi's incipit, but I said to myself
: the harder it is, the more interesting it is and the juicier the victory will be.
"
"We, the rulers of hell"
In
L'île muse
, the Haitian student Peterson Désir stages himself in a universe he knows well, his native country, transformed into an emblematic place teaching the devil's grandson.
On this island like no other, we meet a Haitian "
who knows nothing about the country
", the "
Big 20
" and of course the prince of death with his cynical observation: "
We, the leaders of hell, we is inspired by the methods of the leaders of your country to make our kingdom more infernal
”.
For Peterson Désir, literature makes it possible to "
talk about the subjects that annoy, without hurting anyone, to talk about what hurts, without crying out for help
", he reacted after the announcement of the award. and confessed: "
Literature is something that saves my life every day
".
Gary Victor and his way of writing
With this prize, the student in social communication at the Faculty of Human Sciences of the State University of Haiti made his first breakthrough in this world called literature in the French language where many Haitians excel, from novelist Yanick Lahens to 'to the poet Frankétienne through the academician Dany Laferrière, the poet of the Haitian diaspora René Depestre or the poet James Noël ... “
From an early age, I began to read Gary Victor and Lyonel Trouillot.
In addition, I had Gary Victor as professor of dramaturgy in the faculty of humanities.
It influenced not only my will, but also my way of writing.
"
The jury's prize will enable him to benefit from "
an international stay of cultural and literary experiences worth 2,000 euros, as soon as conditions allow
".
In the meantime, Peterson Désir, pen name PetDesir_PouEkilibLa, is already eager to take other manuscripts out of his drawer, for example
Letter to my mother
which also evokes the situation of his native country, but also
For the night and for the life
, "
Something erotic, which a teenager or a student encounters quite easily in his life ...
"
Louendy Cheryet, winner of the People's Choice Award
With his desire to share things, Peterson Désir will certainly find his readers.
On the prize platform, the 673 works in the running have already recorded 510,000 readings and 63,400 comments on the short-edition.com site.
The Public Prize for the 2020 edition of the RFI-AUF Young Writing Prize was awarded to his compatriot Louendy Cheryet, a medical student, also at the State University of Haiti, for his short story
The tiny giant
.
After 92,100 votes from Internet users around the world, his text gathered 43,100 readings and more than 13,000 “likes” on the Short Édition site.
►
Click here to listen to the reading of the winning text
L'île muse
, by Peterson Désir
► To read also:
The RFI Theater 2020 Prize awarded to Guinean Souleymane Bah for "La Cargaison"
► To read also:
The Ivorian Yaya Diomandé, first winner of the “Voix d'Afriques” prize
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