Claiming the Field: Africa and the Space of Indian Ocean Literature

Author(s): Moradewun Adejunmobi

Source: Callaloo, Vol. 32, No. 4, Middle Eastern & North African Writers (Winter, 2009),
pp. 1247-1261
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27743146
Accessed: 08-10-2019 08:41 UTC

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 CLAIMING THE FIELD
Africa and the Space of Indian Ocean Literature

by Moradewun Adejunmobi

As is well known to a restricted company of specialists in the English-speaking world,

there are and have been for centuries, writers from the Indian Ocean world. There exist
and have existed in the past significant literary movements and major authors. Nonethe
less, I remain intrigued by the fact that the category of Indian Ocean literature has never
quite achieved the kind of prominence enjoyed by say, Caribbean literature, to consider
just one other example of a corpus of texts associated with mainly coastal and island
based communities, sharing in common similar experiences of slavery, indentured labor,
colonialism, and other deprivations of political and economic rights. Efforts to project the
Indian Ocean world as a zone of distinctiveness and coherence have not yet borne much
fruit in the literary field. In universities in the English-speaking world, there are courses
on African literature, on Caribbean literature, on Black literature, on Asian literature, but
few courses I would suggest on Indian Ocean literature. The fault is of course partially
ours as scholars, but it may also reflect a deeper malaise on the part of the communities
whose texts we are seeking to systematize.
My concerns in this paper do not primarily pertain to the tensions that may or may
not exist between ethnic groups in the region, to both real and constructed differences
between fairer-skinned and darker-skinned people in the Indian Ocean area. Nor am I
seeking to prove that the community I will be discussing here, namely the Malagasy,
really are or are not Africans. The questions I would like to deal with are the following:
why is it that writers from the Indian Ocean area have not, by and large, been involved
in efforts to advertise the notion of a regional identity? And what would it take for Indian
Ocean literature to acquire visibility as an autonomous category of world literature? As
I will suggest here, Indian Ocean literature has suffered in the first place from the appar
ent reluctance of Indian Ocean authors to center their political activism on the region as
a whole. Furthermore, and in the second place, the seeming detachment of these writers
from the Indian Ocean area fits into a regional pattern of highlighting distant locations and
ancestries. This regional pattern can, in turn, be attributed to the proximity of the islands
to the African continent, a site historically associated with memories of slavery in local
imaginarles. Finally, and for these reasons, the relationship of Indian Ocean communities
to the African mainland remains central to the problematic of forging a distinct regional
identity in the literature and popular culture created by Indian Ocean artists.
I first started thinking on this subject in the 1980s while doing research and gathering
material on the Malagasy author, Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo. At the onset of my research
project, I had been led to believe that I was working on Malagasy literature, on Indian

Callaloo 32.4 (2009) 1247-1261

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 CALLALOO

Ocean literature, on Francophone literature, and most importantly on African

Indeed, I became interested in Malagasy literature mainly because it appeared
an insufficiently studied area of African literature. A very productive visit t
at the end of the 1980s, however, caused me to begin reviewing some of the
which I had assumed that Rabearivelo's work naturally belonged.
For one thing, many of the extremely helpful and friendly people I met in
made it clear to me that they did not in fact consider themselves to be Afric
writer whom I met at a conference somewhere in Europe a few years ago
opinions. In later years, I met other Malagasy who had much to say on the im
cooperation between the nations of the global south la coop?ration sud-sud (o
cooperation" as they called it), but it was a form of cooperation which could
have involved Madagascar and Peru as Madagascar and Mozambique. If my
considered the usefulness of a Malagasy rapprochement with countries like Sou
was merely a question of proximity and convenience rather than one of proje
and historical commonalities. Perhaps I was mistaken after all, and Malag
did not in fact belong under the rubric of African literature.
Lilyan Kesteloot said as much in her ground-breaking study, Ecrivains noir
fran?aise, naissance d'une litt?rature (1963), considered one of the first major stu
scholarly discussion around the category of Black and African literature in F
entity separate from French literature. She explains thus her decision not to
famous Malagasy poet, Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, in her study of "Black" writ

This is literature that we propose to study. We have therefore ex

a number of black authors who were not formed in the Par
crucible. Though the works of these authors often have merit,
are not strong enough to attract an important audience by artis
excellence alone. A single exception is the great Madagascan
Rabearivelo. However, he is an Indonesian and, although he
suffered from colonization, he nevertheless has no experien
anti-black prejudice and has no part in African culture. We
therefore not include him in the Negro movement. (10)1

At several points in the book, Kesteloot makes conflicting comments abo

bearivelo's compatriots whose poetry she does choose to discuss in this wo
literature. For instance, on Jacques Rabemananjara, who was heavily invo
N?gritude movement based in France, she remarks: "Rabemananjara is no
but a Madagascan. Although black, he belongs to a different civilization,
peoples of the Orient than of Africa, and he does not feel a close bond unitin
other blacks ..." (319). For Kesteloot then, one Malagasy writer is Indones
fore not African, while the other is Black, though from the Orient. Given t
book, which foregrounds race, Kesteloot opted to include many references to
Rabemananjara, while barely mentioning the "Indonesian" Rabearivelo in
acceptance of race, but not geography, as a basis for deciding which author t
a not insignificant detail with important implications. As will become eviden
choices made by Kesteloot exemplify what has become a standard critical app
study of authors from the Indian Ocean area, and which bears closer examina

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 CALLALOO

Writing in the early twentieth century, Rabearivelo likewise distanced

Africa, using the expression Latin chez les M?laniens ("Latin among the
characterize his chosen identity (Boudry 544). The great irony of course is t
in the end achieved visibility mainly through association with a part of the
could not be described as either Latin or Melanesian, a part of the world wh
rarely and only by indirection in his own creative universe. It was within th
emerging African canon that Rabearivelo's work succeeded in attracting the
deserved around the world. Though Rabearivelo had had poems and excerpts
published in literary journals in France such as Mercure universel and Les Nouv
among others, Leopold Senghor's inclusion of Rabearivelo's poetry in h
anthology and the subsequent translation of Rabearivelo's poetry into En
as part of the Heinemann African Writers Series provided the means to ext
elo's reputation beyond a small circle of connoisseurs in France and Madagas
I would go so far as to say that had it not been for Senghor's inclusion of R
poetry in his anthology, Rabearivelo might have remained on the margins o
forgotten French colonial literature, despite his evident talent.3
Affirmations of the kind made by foreign observers like Kesteloot and b
themselves point to what I consider to be a larger trend in Malagasy cul
seems to typify many of the island communities that make up the Indian O
particularly but not exclusively those located off the African mainland: the
define communities, almost by negation, in terms of what they are not, inst
affirmative descriptors. Let me be clear: I am not advocating here that
themselves or scholars of Madagascar should have more vigorously ascr
of "African" identity to residents of the island, whatever that means. Rath
ested in the recurrent denials of connections with Africa, which seemed to
significant and core element of Malagasy identity.
A good place to start in trying to disentangle Malagasy attitudes towards
continent and the relationship of Malagasy to Black identity is in the litera
Since the early twentieth century, Malagasy authors have made reference d
directly to the difference in social status between often fairer skinned Mal
fotsy and the darker skinned Malagasy called mainty. Rabearivelo's novel, L'
originally written in 1928 though only published in the 1980s, offers perha
flagrant representation of a perceived opposition between Black and honora
identity in Malagasy literature in French. Wherever characters portrayed a
in this novel, they are presented in contrast to those whom the narrator i
Indonesians." These Blacks are deceptive, promiscuous, and without p
personify the obverse of the "Indonesian" type and occupy the lower end of
from which the "Indonesians" are supposedly excluded by their very consti
extent that individuals who might be described as Black feature in Rabeariv
world, they are to be distinguished from the fairer skinned Malagasy who h
contaminated by the attributes associated with Blackness.
Later writers express none of Rabearivelo's prejudices; however, they too
point to the problematic connotations of Black identity in Malagasy society. T
example in David Jaomanoro's 1990 play, La Retraite, the characters discuss t
an armed robber, whom we are told is Black. From that point on, the conve

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 CALLALOO

on his physical attributes, which clearly deviate from the expected norm: "
. .. aux l?vres aussi ?paisses que les liasses de billets ... le nez tellement
for?t vierge qui lui tient lieu de tignasse ..." 'A big black man ... lips as thic
cash... flattened nose ... a head of hair like a virgin forest...' (Jaomanor
observations are made by a young man with straight hair trying to disc
armed robber with whom one of the female characters in the play has a rel
yet another example, the protagonist of Mich?le Rakotoson's 1996 novel
emps, arrives in Paris from Madagascar, dreaming of becoming blond and c
"Black is not beautiful" only to realize after several encounters with a socie
characterized by the author in terms of its whiteness, that she had become
Black (16, 82).
When Rabearivelo declared himself "Latin chez les M?laniens" he was in
ing that the identity and culture of the Malagasy could be accounted for by
to Southeast Asian cultures. If few Malagasy writers today fully embrac
perspective, things have changed little in the popular culture sphere. Malaga
their interpreters worldwide continue to operate within a framework calcu
would seem, to emphasize their origination from Southeast Asia and thei
Africa.6 A typical blurb on the cover of a CD by the Malagasy singing g
on an internet website focusing on Malagasy music will sooner or later
history lesson along the following lines: "Although the Malagasy are us
to be African, their origins from perhaps 1,500 years ago are Malayo-P
Indonesia" or "The first settlers of Madagascar were not from Africa, b
Polynesians from Indonesia." Assertions of this sort that disregard or di
African contributions to Malagasy culture remain current in the popular cu
growing evidence to the contrary provided by historians.7
While the admixture of ethnic groups and races differs from one Indi
to the next, the attitudes discussed here are not peculiar to Madagascar.
reports a similar emphasis on distant and specifically non-African ancestrie
dents of most Indian Ocean islands, making a special note not only of
also of the Comoros islands where acknowledgement of ties with the Ar
takes precedence over recognition of any connections with Africa (10-11). I
Mauritius, the rhetoric regarding cultural connections to Asia has even
part of the public relations arsenal deployed by both the government and p
with recurrent references to the island as "Asian Tiger" or "Singapore of th
in various mass media.8
Assuming these invocations of distant ancestries are more or less accurate
outlines, what exactly do they contribute to the advancement of a specifica
cultural agenda? Not much, I would suggest, since most of the attention is
from the Indian Ocean area itself as a valid site of belonging and a possible
coherence. The repeated references to Southeast Asia in the popular cul
more striking in the Malagasy instance, since sustained interactions have by
continued with Indonesia, Malaysia etc., in the ways in which interactions h
at least with more immediately located territories within the Indian Ocean
case of Rabearivelo, for example, it is interesting to note that he interacted n
Malagasy contemporaries, but also with writers from the islands of Mauriti

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 CALLALOO

He had poems published in a journal edited by Marius and Ary Leblond

well-known twosome who won the Goncourt prize for their novel, En
Rabearivelo likewise published his work in Mauritian literary journals
had contact with the Mauritian poet, Robert-Edward Hart, to whom h
of his poems. And yet, neither he nor these other writers from the regio
elaborate an agenda for Indian Ocean writers.9 Instead, Rabearivelo co
of his world and of the Malagasy as essentially Melanesian or Indonesia
In some respects, the Malagasy preoccupation with distant ancestrie
for island communities. Many island writers privilege their compatrio
with more distantly located communities as a way of distinguishing thems
dominant cultures of the nearest continental landmass. The foregrounding
Indonesia, India, Arabia, and France in Zanzibar, Madagascar, the Seych
R?union, and Mauritius served a similar purpose in all cases, that is to def
that could not be confused with the popular identities associated with
coast in particular.
Ironically, the greater willingness to acknowledge some cultural ties
particular constituencies in the Caribbean may illustrate the same principl
mizing the significance of the shift away from identification with Europe
centers in the late colonial period among several Caribbean writers, it
recognize that the privileging of African origins at a certain point in time
another case of invoking more distantly located ancestries, as part of the
ing an identity separate from that associated with communities on the ne
for segments of these island communities. With the Indian Ocean islands,
nearest continental landmass was Africa, not America. Demonstrating, the
residents were not African became a critical focus of the self-attributed i
writers from the region and remains an important element in acts of self
emanating from the sphere of popular culture.
However, the desire to distinguish oneself from communities on the nea
landmass is not the only factor responsible for the repression of memori
cestry on the Indian Ocean islands. If memories of African ancestry have
the same cannot be said for awareness of a connection between African an
status. Indeed, it is often because memories of slave status remain trouble
tious that neither African proximity nor ancestry can be acknowledged. I
novel, L'Interf?rence, referred to earlier and where the story unfolds in ni
Madagascar, the Black and non-Indonesian characters are clearly identi
descendants of slaves.10 Contemporary observers from the region like the
Mich?le Rakotoson and the Mauritian researcher, Norbert Beno?t, have also
the role of memories of African slave ancestry in shaping identity and so
Indian Ocean islands today.11
Notwithstanding the frequent and unfavorable connection of African an
status, a number of writers began, starting in the 1950s, to make an effort
persistent trend in Malagasy and Indian Ocean culture by specifically align
with ideologies of Blackness, at least politically if not culturally. Jacques R
long-term affiliation with the Pr?sence Africaine publishing house in Par
leaders of the N?gritude movement can be read in this light. More recent

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 CALLALOO

toson has made several references to her status as a Black person living in
interview with Christiane Makward a few years ago, she speaks of being
une femme noire dans une soci?t? d'hommes blancs" T am a black wo
of white men' (qtd. in Makward 180). In another interview a decade e
the reaction of people in Madagascar to her identification with Blackness:
mentioned that I had Afro hair (les cheveux cr?pus) and it caused a furor!
to say such things" (qtd. in Davis 46). In his younger days, the Mauritian
Maunick often spoke of himself too as Black. He is known to have remark
"J'ai ?crit quelque part que je suis n?gre de pr?f?rence" T have written
my preferred identity is Black' (qtd. in Mataillet 4).
Rabemanajara, Rakotoson, and Maunick all affirmed their Black iden
in France. And I think it is certainly no coincidence that those writers w
themselves more closely with the idea of being Black spent a conside
time away from home and particularly in places where a broad solida
communities made sense. The limitations of an island identity become cle
is confronted with discrimination on a scale that simply subsumes island-
within larger racialized constructs. Rakotoson, for example, acknowle
the insufficiency of Malagasy identity as a basis for political activism in
interview with Makward mentioned earlier, she recalls being told not long
in France in the 1980s and during a demonstration on behalf of the Beur
North African immigrants: "Tu ne pourras continuer ta guerre qu'en rejoi
autres" The only way to advance in your own struggle is to join the strug
(qtd. in Makward 180). For Rabemananjara, Rakotoson, and Maunick, affir
identity was thus frequently inscribed within the context of political act
away from home. Indeed, a strategy that Indian Ocean writers have of
signaling a more radical political orientation consists in affecting that wh
to be generally suspect in their part of the world, namely Blackness.
Blackness was to establish one's credentials as politically progressive an
highly critical of the political and cultural status quo. Not surprisingl
underscored his uniquely political understanding of what it meant to be B
book, Nationalisme et probl?mes malgaches. Blackness, he claimed was abo
colonialism, and by that standard, Dravidians and Malaysians had as m
themselves Black as the Zulu and the Yoruba (109).
The association of Black identities with political activism helps expl
scholars and editors chose to include works by authors like Rabemana
in their anthologies or studies of Black African literature while also addi
the effect that such Indian Ocean writers could not be considered Africa
their politics entitled them to identification as Black, even as other aspec
called implied geographical associations into question. In his 1948 antholog
Senghor, the editor, indicates in his introductory remarks that he felt t
leave out the Malagasy poets, though he, like Rabearivelo before him, des
Melanesian (2). Senghor does not explain further why he felt unable to
writers in a collection constructed around the idea of a singular racial
cally designated as a Black racial identity connected to Africa. It is Jean-
famous introduction, "Orph?e n?gre," who clearly confirms that the basis

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 CALLALOO

was in fact political, and that the affirmation of a "Black" identity was a
in what he perceived as a revolutionary struggle. The staging of a Black i
collection was a means towards a political end, an end to which Malag
Rabemananjara were certainly committed, and that would justify thei
anthology, whether or not this poet viewed himself as therefore connect
such, it was more likely for his political activism than his pigmentation t
able to classify Rabemananjara as a "Black" writer, while eliminating h
active compatriot, Rabearivelo, from her study. And if Rabearivelo's work
make it into many anthologies of Black and African writing, it may h
the politically active Rabemananjara brought Rabearivelo's writing to the
friends in Paris.13
By and large, then, and with the exception of Rabearivelo, who began t
wide interest mostly after his death, the early Indian Ocean writers who
attention outside the region, and whose works were most often incorpora
rican canon, were those who had been politically active especially abroad,
Rabemananjara, Rakotoson, and Maunick are a case in point. As a student i
1940s, Rabemananjara became involved in the N?gritude movement a
and Caribbean students while also remaining active in Malagasy poli
colonial administration identified him as one of the ringleaders of the 19
in Madagascar which led to thousands of deaths, and he was imprisoned f
After Madagascar gained independence, he served in the Malagasy governm
when the government was overthrown and he went into exile in France. R
involvement with the institutions of N?gritude continued after his retur
he would eventually become director of the Pr?sence Africaine publishing
by individuals active in the N?gritude movement. Rakotoson cut her
demonstrations against the government of President Didier Ratsiraka in t
going into exile in France where she remained politically active among
in pro-democracy circles. Though his departure from Mauritius in 19
cally motivated, Maunick took the opportunity of being away from hom
friendships with politically active African writers on arriving in France,
most of his adult life and also became editor of two political magazines, D
(in the 1970s) and Jeune Afrique (in the 1990s).
It was not difficult to absorb the works of writers like these into "Bla
a category frequently constructed in explicitly political terms. And to th
writers themselves occasionally appropriated these forms of identifi
more often comfortable with qualifiers referring to race than with labels
ography. But as various colonies on the African continent moved towards
references to geography and nation began to supplement and even displac
race in fashioning intellectual genealogies where politics intersected w
time, anthologies of "Black African" literature gave way to anthologies o
erature. A clearly defined political project to be exemplified in cultural p
a critical element in anchoring particular stylistic and thematic concerns
classifications of newer literatures emanating from former colonies in th
the twentieth century. Writers like Rabemananjara, Maunick, and Rakoto
in this wave of political activism, often on behalf of their own nation of

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 CALLALOO

culture, but more frequently in relation to entities like African literature

overseas. Within the broad constellation of African literature that increas
worldwide visibility for authors like Rabemananjara, however, Malagasy an
Ocean writers could not but be minor figures, seemingly disconnected
nental project of assembling a corpus of representative texts bound togeth
concerns, given their own ambivalence about identification with the Afri
The frequent insistence by editors and critics that Indian Ocean writers w
African only served to further confirm their detachment from continent
and to reinforce their marginal status within these entities.14
As such, and despite Rabemananjara's leadership position in Pr?sence
example, Malagasy and Indian Ocean literature never took center stage
ricaine publications.15 On the rare occasions when critics noticed Mal
Ocean authors, the critical approach often consisted in highlighting how d
of such authors were from related trends in African literature, while
singularity of the particular Indian Ocean writer. Nonetheless and followi
started in the 1940s, publications of Indian Ocean literature translated int
tinued to feature and to be published mainly in collections dedicated to A
or African studies.16
In anthologies and critical works in French, a more consistent effor
over time to delimit a special space for Indian Ocean writing within the f
phone literature. One problem with much of the work in Francophone stu
lies in the fact that the emphasis on language as organizing principle ofte
exclusion of texts written in languages other than French or unrelated to
the exclusion of texts by authors from territories that were not former F
More importantly, those concerns which specifically typified Indian Ocean
were rarely highlighted. Rather, Indian Ocean literature was often project
flection of and junior cousin to French Caribbean literature, another exam
and creolization, only somewhat less exciting than its Caribbean counterp
stake here is not geographical accuracy as such since anyone could conceiv
contract the borders of the Indian Ocean to fit the scope of their experti
grid that is not defined mainly by language may, however, prove better
ing patterns of cultural convergence and divergence that are peculiar to t
matters because the work of making Indian Ocean literature visible within
of literary criticism must begin by foregrounding what makes culture fr
distinct and different from either Caribbean or African culture, despite le
Historians of the Indian Ocean area have begun work in this direction.19 L
have yet to fully embrace these models.
This then is the critical issue: the persistent and relative invisibility
literature within the varied classifications of world literature. Literature
oping world generally attracts sustained attention to the extent that
embody trends with significance for larger political and cultural constitu
respect, one cannot but agree with Fran?oise Lionnet when she observes t
not have the same status imaginatively or politically as the larger con
and Asia" ("Refraining Baudelaire" 64-65). A single island rarely suffic
category for creating an international literary presence. Caribbean literat

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 CALLALOO

ates more traction than Barbadian literature or Dominican literature. The

holds true for literatures from the Indian Ocean area. Except they become
larger entity focused on the region itself and that has internal coherence
still be distinguished from African literature, or within Francophone lite
from the region will continue to be apprehended as minor figures within
of African and Francophone literature.
In this regard, one may wonder why it is that even the most politically
from the region have not in the past pursued their political activism on
Ocean literature and Indian Ocean communities as a collective. Why is
writer like Rakotoson spoke in France of joining others in their struggle
the others under consideration were not specifically from the Indian
is it that an author like Rabemananjara never deployed his consider
political capital on behalf of the Indian Ocean area as a whole? While t
the authors remain hidden from view, one sees in their creative works as
statements a high degree of insularity coupled with a modified expression
ing tendency towards renunciation of the Indian Ocean region as location
may have been willing to describe themselves as "Black" on occasion,
never identified themselves with the larger and smaller space of the I
Geography, it would seem, was always more problematic than race. Inasm
like Rakotoson was willing to describe herself as Black, especially with re
political activism in France, to the same degree, she regularly foreground
ity of Malagasy history and culture. The emphasis on insularity that man
region seem to embrace probably reaches its apogee in the poetry of Rabe
Maunick where the word ?le (island) recurs over and over again.
Rarely if ever do writers from the Indian Ocean area focus on comm
the region's residents. Even among the most progressive Indian Ocean
cation with Blackness provided a basis for political solidarity outside rath
the region. One could affirm a non-insular collective identity abroad,
where it might be mistaken for acceptance of a problematic location.
writers were building political bridges overseas but not within the In
itself. Identifying with Blackness was a contingent political maneuver, su
abroad, and often bracketed off from the primary textual concerns of th
writer.20 Maunick has explained more recently, for example, that his ear
himself as Black was not intended to be read as a definitive statement wi
own identity, but was his way of expressing solidarity with oppressed gr
4). Despite the usefulness of such affiliations abroad, it was often unders
might not be the preferred terms of mobilization and self-identification
when it came to speaking about cultural practices and politics at home
one of these writers invoked an individual island rather than the region.
There were Caribbean writers, too, who privileged identification wi
certain point in time. In the French-speaking Caribbean, Aim? C?saire an
generation adopted this approach to the question of Caribbean identi
such Caribbean authors, this identification did not function only as a con
strategy useful abroad, but always, in addition, as a basis for regional acts o
The very distance of Africa from the Caribbean probably made it easier t

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 CALLALOO

African cultural legacies as a basis for these initial acts of regional self-de
Africa became a less salient and dominant presence in later formulatio
ribbean identity. For example, Jean Bernab?, Patrick Chamoiseau, and Rap
start off their famous manifesto on the ideology of cr?olit? with this decl
Europeans, nor Africans, nor Asians, we proclaim ourselves Creole" (75). B
region as a whole rather than just Martinique or Guadeloupe remained in t
privileged and distinctive locus for such Creole identities, though the
the Creole attributes of populations in some Indian Ocean islands. T
changing perceptions of the significance of their relationship to Africa, C
since the mid-twentieth century have continuously found reason to affir
of their location and the distinctiveness of the cultures that emerged fro
in that location.
By contrast, Malagasy writers as one example from the Indian Ocean are
to focus on the uniqueness of the Malagasy experience, describing it a
parallel on other islands within the region or beyond. In underscoring the
individual island communities at the expense of continuities evident with
best-known authors from the Indian Ocean islands effectively distanced t
a troublesome regional location and inadvertently ensured that much of t
their part of the world would be overlooked. It comes as no surprise, then
an Indian Ocean writer like Maunick was already writing about m?tiss
to his own island community of Mauritius and about the land with plural
peau plurielle) in the 1970s in such collections of poetry as Ensoleill? vif,
with the Caribbean as a region that the discourse on creolization as lit
became identified through the pronouncements of such authors as Chamo
and Confiant among many others. Maunick made m?tissage the property
community, while Chamoiseau and company adopted a similar principl
entire region and with considerable success.
Further compounding the problem for Indian Ocean literatures, the last
twentieth century have been characterized by a weakening of regionally
cal movements among creative writers, the waning appeal of territorially
among writers from the developing world, as well as the ability of th
such movements to influence the publishing and publicizing of particular
by authors from many postcolonial locations. As such, and in keeping
atomistic values of an age firmly wedded to neo-liberal economics, act
vidual scale increasingly receives greater attention globally than regional
especially with audiences and publishers in the West who have the resourc
the works of newer authors.
Younger writers from the Indian Ocean area who live abroad like th
Luc Raharimanana are now more likely to be published by publishing
minimal interest in the idea of a regional or even a national literature
are often more invested in the project of offering their Western based r
smorgasbord of diverse ethnic, racial, and national cultures. In this ne
writers from outside the West have a greater possibility of being pub
invoke the most insular or minor of minor identities, and when their po
takes on a decidedly iconoclastic bent. Accordingly, and though Raha

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 CALLALOO

knowledged having to think of himself as alternatively African or Asian

France, more so than the Malagasy writers who preceded him, his wo
mainly as non-Western, and detached from any regional or national
Raharimanana does engage in criticism of political events in his country,
the uniqueness of his experience as a Malagasy writer does not in my opi
for Indian Ocean literature and speaks to the decline of the kind of polit
prompted writers like Rabemananjara and Rakotoson to develop broa
from the 1940s to the 1980s.
The contingent character of Indian Ocean identification with Bla
opinion, not nearly as damaging to literature from this part of the worl
lack of interest in regional projects of self-definition that might render t
visible to institutional readers. By constantly stressing how dissimilar
Ocean authors were to any authors on the African mainland, literary scho
popularize the insular approach to Indian Ocean writing that has contribu
ibility of much Indian Ocean literature. They could help reverse the tren
regionally focused reading of texts, and by seeking to reconstruct the hi
interactions among writers and other artists where such interactions hav
doing, they would be following in the footsteps of historians, archeologi
who have done more to track regional movements and interactions than h
Indian Ocean literatures. Making salient regional patterns in the way wri
community history, questions of identity, and local politics would also se
Indian Ocean area as a space with its own cultural trajectories and recurre
Of these tropes, there is perhaps none more deserving of sustained stu
response to the past resulting in denial of current location coupled with
tions of more distant ancestries. Thus according to Alpers, speaking a
communities "in sharp contrast to the situation in the Atlantic world, th
tradition of struggling either to recall African origins or to understand
transformation of African ways in the new world in which Africans fou
a consequence of the slave trade" (84). In the specific case of highland
son remarks, "the relevant question is not so much how the slave trade i
but how it was and continues to be forgotten ..." ("Reconsidering T
consequences of this silencing of particular memories are a critical eleme
cultures of the Indian Ocean area writ large apart from the Caribbean and
It is for this reason that literary and cultural critics need to restore the an
identification with Africa to the center of discussion, and to acknowledg
problematic status of the Indian Ocean location in regional imaginarles, in
the process of reclaiming the field of Indian Ocean literature as an area w
independent of its historic connections to African and Caribbean literatu
The process would not entail a ranking of authors simply by their will
with troublesome questions of slavery and or race. Rather, regional tr
attention in the creative writing from the Indian Ocean area might inclu
on official and unofficial community memories, the preoccupation w
tries, varied interpretations of divisions within local communities, eithe
acknowledgement of ties with neighboring communities, the foreground
the multiple conceptualizations of local identity and their possible relatio

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 CALLALOO

creoleness, and discontent with postcolonial politics, especially as it relates

the past. On the question of Creole identities in the Indian Ocean area, Lio
the existence of several and conflicting imaginations of creoleness among
R?union and Mauritius ("Cr?olit?" HO).23 Hawkins describes further develo
deployment of the notion of cr?olit? by newer playwrights operating
Appropriate" 314). In Mauritius, Dev Virahsawmy, also a playwright, h
works to further elaborate on the idea of a more localized Creole identity.24
that unlike Maunick who spent much of his professional life abroad, the a
varied formulations of cr?olit? are based in the Indian Ocean islands and t
of Creole culture represents much more of a response to the local politica
than the internationally based Pan-African activism of Maunick. But
like Madagascar where the notion of Creole cultures and identities ha
resonance, the very absence of an explicit discourse on this subject offers
for a comparative investigation of the different ways in which cultural m
constituted on the islands and mainland territories of the Indian Ocean ar
It will no doubt take the combined efforts of committed writers, editors
transform Indian Ocean literature into a more visible and clearly defined
to, but separate from African, Caribbean, and Francophone literature
from the Indian Ocean islands have not shown sustained interest in or had
resources that would enable them to promote any literary category w
would constitute dominant rather than marginal voices. It is not clear as y
ers like Virahsawmy or Raharimanana might be interested in or have the
promote the idea of a regional literature. Scholars of literature could cert
individual Indian Ocean writers by placing their works in a context larger
single island, but where these writers still feature as central actors. This w
Indian Ocean writers in relation to Indian Ocean regional trends and r
As has been suggested here, the recurrent renunciation of the region as lo
troubled connotations of identification with Africa and with Blacknes
starting point for tracking distinctive and significant regional trends in
popular culture of the Indian Ocean area.

NOTES

1. My references are to the English translation of Kesteloot's book: Black Writers in French. Where
published English translations exist for the works I refer to, I have quoted those translations. In all
other cases, I have provided the original citation in French followed by my translation.
2. Rabearivelo's poetry also appeared in English translation in several other anthologies of Black African
poetry from the 1960s to the 1980s. The earliest translation into English seems to have been Beier's
24 Poems. That translation too was undertaken as part of a project of making African literature better
known.
3. Clearly, several other writers from the same time period associated with the Indian Ocean islands
and who were not fortunate enough to be included in Senghor's anthology have disappeared from
view. And even for Rabearivelo, his most frequently cited works remain selections from the particular
poetry collections referenced by Senghor.
4. Alpers suggests that "[t]he principal vehicles for African memory and identity in the Indian Ocean
world are music, song, and dance; religion and healing; language and folkways" (91). Although
written literature is not part of the continuum identified by Alpers, it alerts us to the specific ways
in which a local intelligentsia might process community memory and identity.

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5. For a fuller discussion of this novel an

Ideology."
6. Ironically, residents of other Indian Ocean islands like R?union and Mauritius are more likely to
trace "African" -derived practices in their communities to Madagascar, rather than to the African
mainland itself, even as the Malagasy stress their own Southeast Asian roots. See for example Teelock
and Alpers.
7. For further information on descendants of East African slaves known as the Makoa in Madagascar,
see Alpers 87.
8. See Aumeerally.
9. For further information on Rabearivelo's contacts with writers in the Indian Ocean area, see Ad
ejunmobi, /. /. Rabearivelo 55, 68,143.
10. This will not come as a surprise to informed observers. As Larson has noted, the terms fotsy and
mainty mentioned earlier in this article also mark a distinction between slave status (mainty) and
non-slave (fotsy) in Malagasy culture. See Larson, History and Memory xix-xx, xxvii-xxviii.
11. For Rakotoson's comments, see Makward 181-82. For Beno?t's comments, see Beno?t 135.
12. Rakotoson left Madagascar for exile in France in 1983 during the rule of Didier Ratsiraka. She has
continued to live in France since that time.
13. Although individual poems by Rabearivelo had occasionally appeared in a few journals published
in France, the first time his poetry surfaces in an anthology of "Black" literature is in Senghor's 1948
anthology. It was almost certainly Rabemanajara that introduced Senghor to Malagasy writing in
French. Rabemananjara became acquainted withSenghor and other N?gritude writers while a student
at the Sorbonne in the early 1940s. He had also been a close friend of Rabearivelo's, and in a note to
Rabemananjara shortly before committing suicide in 1937, Rabearivelo had written: "Je te passe le
flambeau. Tiens-le haut" 'I pass the torch to you. Hold it high/ (Rabemananjara, "50e anniversaire"
9). For further accounts of Rabemananjara's friendship with Rabearivelo, and the publication history
of Rabearivelo's works, see Rabemananjara, "50e anniversaire" and Adejunmobi, /. /. Rabearivelo.
14. The very title of Senghor's 1948 anthology, with its reference to "Negro and Malagasy" poetry al
ready advertised a separate identity and status for Malagasy authors. The anthology in French by
Hughes and Reygnault in 1962, as well as Wake's anthology for English readers in 1965, follow the
same pattern with the titles Anthologie africaine et malgache and An Anthology of African and Malagasy
Poetry in French. Modern Poetry from Africa edited by Moore and Beier from 1963 does not identify
Malagasy authors as different from other African poets in its title. However, the editors do echo
earlier editors in their introduction when they write: "The two poets of Madagascar included here,
though enthusiastically embraced by Senghor in his exciting Anthologie de la nouvelle po?sie n?gre
et malgache (1948), do not entirely belong in the company of their French African contemporaries"
(16).
15. Apart from his own creative writing, Pr?sence Africaine published no other creative works by
Malagasy and other Indian Ocean area authors while Rabemananjara was director of the publishing
house.
16. As an example, the most recent translations of Malagasy literature made available in English ap
peared under the label of an American university press with a special interest in African Studies.
Voices from Madagascar, An Anthology of Contemporary Literature edited by Jacques Bourgeacq and
Liliane Ramarosoa was published in 2002 by Ohio UP as part of its Africa Series.
17. Zanzibar and the Swahili-speaking communities of the East African coast come to mind, as do the
Arabian peninsula and the Indian subcontinent.
18. See for example Litt?ratures insulaires, or a special edition of the journal Notre Librairie from 1991
titled Dix ans de litt?ratures.
19. I'm thinking here of work by historians like Alpers, Teelock, and Larson (History and Memory, Ocean
of Letters) among others.
20. Maunick might be considered the exception here since he proclaimed himself Black almost as fre
quently as he proclaimed himself m?tis (mixed blood) in his poetry
21. In the interview with Davis cited earlier, Rakotoson acknowledges local resistance to her self
identification as a woman with "Afro hair." Similarly, Maunick's family expressed surprise at early
his description of himself as Black after he arrived in Paris. They allegedly wrote him asking: "Since
when are you black?" (Kennedy 255).
22. Hawkins's The Other Hybrid Archipelago, for instance, offers the most up-to-date regional study of
Francophone Indian Ocean literature. This is an example of a comparative approach highlighting
the region that will hopefully be further developed in future studies, and focused on accounting for
distinctive trends within the region.

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23. Lionnet's article comparing notions

worthy model for a more in-depth st
24. For more on Virahsawmy, see Lion

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