Louis-Philippe Dalembert, to put an end to police violence

Writer Louis-Philippe Dalembert in studio at RFI (September 2021).

© Catherine Fruchon-Toussaint / RFI

By: Catherine Fruchon-Toussaint

2 min

Louis-Philippe Dalembert was born in Port-au-Prince and lives in Paris.

Since 1993 he has published short stories, poetry, essays and novels.

“Before the shadows fade away” (2017) won the Orange Book Prize and the France Bleu / Page Bookstores Prize;

“Mediterranean Wall” (2019), was awarded the French Language Prize, the Goncourt Prize for Switzerland and Poland.

Her new novel "Milwaukee Blues" appeared like the previous two by Sabine Wespieser publisher.

Advertising

Milwaukee Blues © Sabine Wespieser editor

“Since he composed the nine one one, the Pakistani manager of the convenience store in Franklin Heights, a district north of Milwaukee, has not slept: his nightmares are inhabited by black faces screaming '

I can't breathe anymore

'. he should not have called the emergency number for a suspicious banknote. But it is too late, and the media around the world keep reminding him of the appalling death of his passing customer, suffocated by the knee of a policeman.

The murder of George Floyd in May 2020 inspired Louis-Philippe Dalembert to write this ample and overwhelming novel. But it is the life of his hero, an imaginary figure named Emmett - like Emmett Till, a teenager murdered by southern racists in 1955 - that he will stage, the life of a kid from the black ghettos that his talent for American football promised a rich future.

His former teacher and his childhood friends remember a good little one raised alone by a very pious mother, and who went straight, all in his passion for the oval ball. Later, his coach at the university where he obtained a scholarship, as well as his fiancée at the time, were struck by the insecurity of this shy big boy, who had yet become the star of the campus. Everything smiles on him, until an accident which immobilizes him for a few months ... His coach, who treats him like a son, advises him to repeat the year, but Emmett prefers to try the Draft, the selection by a professional franchise. Failure then changes his fate, and it is a man dedicated to collecting odd jobs, always exhausted, who years later will return to his hometown, until the drama that opens the novel. "

(Presentation of

Sabine Wespieser editions

)

Newsletter

Receive all international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_FR

  • Literature

  • Haiti

  • United States

  • France

  • Culture

On the same subject

United States: one year after his death, Minneapolis commemorates George Floyd

In person (s)

"Mediterranean Wall" by Louis-Philippe Dalembert: the novel of female migration

Literature Without Borders

Haitian writer Louis-Philippe Dalembert