Raphaël Confiant, between Martinique and Algeria
Portrait of Raphaël Confiant, French writer from Martinique.
Photo Credit © Montray Kréyol
By: Catherine Fruchon-Toussaint
4 min
Born in Martinique in 1951, Raphaël Confiant has been an activist for the Creole cause since the 1970s, and with Jean Bernabé and Patrick Chamoiseau, created the Mouvement de la Créolité.
Writer in both languages, he is the author of more than thirty books in French including his new novel Du Morne-des-Esses au Djebel, published by Caribbeanbeditions. He is currently a lecturer at the University of the Antilles. and Guyana.
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Cover of the new novel by Raphaël Confiant © Caraïbesbeditions
"The Algerian war, now distant, left traces in the West Indian imagination, largely obscured today by the immense figure of Frantz Fanon. The latter, in fact, had a marked dazzling life trajectory. both through a commitment to the Algerians who demanded their freedom and through books such as Les damnés de la terre (1961) which radiated across the whole world. From Palestine to Quebec, from the black American ghettos to Irish Republicans or to the Tamils of Sri Lanka, Fanonian words have left the seeds of many struggles for dignity. However, not all West Indians who had to deal with the Algerian war were Fanon, far from it! 'conscripts and professional soldiers from Martinique and Guadeloupe took part in this real tragedy which lasted eight years (1954-62) and left more than a million dead, all camps combined.
"Du Morne-des -Esses au Djebel "
retraces the course of three d
'between them, an emblematic route if there is one since it is marked by positions and different destinies, even diametrically opposed.
There is Ludovic Cabont, offspring of a Negress from the sugar cane fields who became an officer of Saint-Cyr, assigned to the famous 10th Parachute Division of Algiers (commanded by General Massu), who deserted, no longer supporting the exactions of the French army while his compatriot Martinique Juvénal Martineau, of petty bourgeois and mulatto extraction, a graduate of the same prestigious school, will make the exact opposite choice.
Another fate: that of Dany Béraud, a young Martinican sorbonnard keen on the theater who will refuse the call for the flag and will join the FLN (National Liberation Front) at the Algerian-Moroccan border without showing any appetite for arms .
In this novel, Raphaël Confiant also draws the portraits of famous FLN leaders such as Youssef Saadi, Ali Lapointe or the formidable Colonel Amirouche who, in the big Algerian cities, but especially in the djebel, the Algerian mountain, will lead the fight against the French occupier and his troops among which we find Burgundians, Normans, Alsaciens, Marseillais, Corsicans but also Senegalese and Antilleans.
Of this bloody confrontation which continues to mark relations between France and Algeria to this day, West Indian memory has retained, in addition to the image of Fanon, only those of soldiers returned crippled or of coffins repatriating them. bodies of young men, many from the countryside, who have fallen into the field of honor or dishonor (depending on your point of view).
It is to these anonymous victims of great history and today almost forgotten that Raphaël Confiant wanted to pay homage through this novel. "
(Presentation of Caribbeditions)
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