Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative - ISSN 1780-678X
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Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative - ISSN 1780-678X |
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Autofiction and Advocacy in the Francophone Caribbean |
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Author: Barbara Beckers Larrier, Renée. Autofiction and Advocacy in the Francophone Caribbean. |
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Renée Larrier's Autofiction and Advocacy in the Francophone Caribbean is a valuable and original addition to the field of Caribbean Studies. Larrier discusses a broad range of works originating from the francophone Caribbean islands of Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guiana and Haiti. These works include novels and short stories by Joseph Zobel, Maryse Condé, Edwidge Danticat, Patrick Chamoiseau, and Giséle Pineau and are brought together by Larrier in the category of autofiction. In the introduction Larrier declares that her "focus on first-person narratives transcends gender, class, and national boundaries, and reinserts Haiti into the Francophone Caribbean paradigm." (26). Indeed, gender awareness and a non-exclusive definition of the francophone Caribbean are among the main points of Larrier's argument. Whereas some have excluded Haiti from the French Antilles configuration, Larrier emphatically includes the island. Likewise, she is sensitive to the implications of Caribbean femininity and masculinity for the texts she analyses.
In Autofiction and Advocacy in the Francophone Caribbean Larrier sets herself the "task to probe the presence, construction, and the project of the je in the text." (21) She does this by combining three overlapping perspectives, three tropes into one framework for reading Caribbean autofiction as testifying to a previously suppressed past and to a newly defined modern Caribbean identity: advocacy, collage and the Martinican combat dance danmyé.
Firstly, Caribbean identity is a complex of geography, history and culture. During the islands' colonization, colonial laws, colonizers' travelogues, planters' and sailors' journals provided a narrative about the Caribbean and imposed a fixed identity upon its people. Larrier argues that as a counterweight to this legacy of slavery, contemporary Caribbean autofiction attempts "to recuperate and rehabilitate coopted and suppressed identities." (21) The dispossessed and exploited "object" becomes the "subject" of Caribbean autofiction. These texts have a testimonial dimension as previously unacknowledged, unrecorded and suppressed experiences are finally being testified to. Their aim is "to restore voice to muted survivors, excavate the buried history." (23) According to Larrier, the Caribbean first-person perspective "resists the dominating gaze, bears witness (témoignage) and transmits ancestral memory." (7) In short, humanity and advocacy are reclaimed through appropriation of the I/Eye which inscribes subjectivity.
Secondly, these post-colonial texts show the Caribbean as a collage of "unfixed, multiple or plural identities." (17) Larrier shows how the theorizing about a Caribbean identity has moved from the notion of métisage, to the more appropriate creolization to a plethora of new terms that try to capture the heterogeneous character of the Caribbean peoples, their cultures and languages and the problematic relationship with France. Such terms include Edouard Glissant's Relation, but also négropolitan, négzagonal, la troisième île, Euro-black, half-generation and tenth department.
Where others have talked about Caribbean culture in terms of a kaleidoscope or mosaic, Larrier prefers the collage metaphor as "it embodies multiple narrators, different perspectives, fragmented memories, mixing of genres and settings." (8) Larrier borrows the term collage text[île]s from the Guadelopean artist Francelise Dawkins whose textile collage Ancient Mother's Visitation is a metaphor for the Caribbean identity: a juxtaposition of different textures, colours, shapes and geographic origins. Caribbean textual collage consists of "narratives that assemble diverse fragments, that may unfold in nonchronological time and space, and that privilege the first-person in Relation to others in the past and present, thereby reflecting modern Creole identity."(26) Thirdly, Larrier uses the damnyé trope to locate instances of advocacy and collage in various autofictional texts. The trope is based on Antonio Benitez-Rojo's notion of the Caribbean novel setting itself up as a total performance, on Rex Nettleford's understanding of dance's heritage, context and interaction and on Glissant's concept of détour, the notion that in colonized or dominated communities communication will usually take place indirectly. Danmyé, also known as laghia, is a traditional dance form, chiefly practiced in Martinique, which resembles martial art in its simulation of a fight that is not aimed to harm but to display power. The dance/fight is accompanied by song and percussion and takes place within a ronde around which an audience gathers. Some of the participants' movements are traditional and codified, others are improvised and inspired by a tambouyé playing the drums. The singers proceed according to a call-and-response model in which the group answers the soloist. Most likely, the dance developed on sugar plantations where slaves used danmyé to escape the colonial rule of silence, the combat dance substituting dialogue. Danmyé is a predominantly male activity and an important site of masculine identity performance. In Joseph Zobel's La Rue Cases-Nègres protagonist José Hassam, who was born on a plantation, applies the lessons of danmyé to his life. Larrier's use of the dance as a metaphor is not gender restricted. In Giséle Pineau's L'Exil selon Julia and L'Espérance-macadam "characters resist and escape the latent male violence simulated in and represented by danmyé." (27) Both examples show that Larrier goes further than merely locating direct references to danmyé ; she sees a resemblance between the essence of the dance and the struggle for advocacy of the postcolonial Caribbean world and seeks to
Nevertheless, the term autofiction might be problematic or inappropriate as it designates both fictional and non-fictional work. Additionally, autofictional works sometimes do and sometimes do not overlap with autobiography. Also first person narration can also focus on someone else's story as is shown in the chapter: "'I Spy': Curators, Translators, and In-trust Narrators." The boundaries of Larrier's category are not clearly defined, but perhaps that is exactly what she is after. She favours non-exclusive categories that recognize differences and errances ; a collage.
All in all, Autofiction and Advocacy in the Francophone Caribbean is an impressive study that offers new insights into the struggle for advocacy in and the collage-like nature of Caribbean literature. Larrier's theory is safely grounded in Caribbean literary practice. Examples of how to use the framework for reading the texts are convincing and prevent the book from becoming too metaphorical. At times the damnyé trope seems a bit far-fetched and stereotypical but it does enrich our understanding of Francophone Caribbean literature, especially through the connections with the notion of autofiction. This makes the book a fascinating and worthwhile read.
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