Le Nègre et l'Amiral

by Raphaël Confiant

Entre 1939 et 1945, la Martinique fut coupée de la métropole et du monde extérieur. L'amiral Robert, envoyé plénipotentiaire du maréchal Pétain, y fit régner une manière de tyrannie vichyste. C'est dans cette atmosphère coloniale tragi-comique que Raphaël Confiant a choisi de tisser les destins de ces personnages hauts en couleur que sont Rigobert et Philomène, nègres du bidonville du Morne Pichevin, d'Alcide, l'instituteur sorti du rang, d'Amédée Mauville, l'intellectuel mulâtre en rupture de classe, du travailleur agricole indien Vidrassamy et du patriarche blanc créole Henri Salin du Bercy. L'auteur, ce faisant, brosse une impressionnante fresque de l'époque.

336 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1988

Reviews

[Vince Will Iam · Rating 4 out of 5]

BOOK #1 as part of my Caribbean Summer Book Tour: Martinique

Raphaël Confiant is one of the most famous writers from Martinique and a member of the "créolité" movement along with his friend Patrick Chamoiseau. The movement promoted the use of Creole language and questioned the legacy of the "Négritude" movement. Confiant argues that there are and will no longer be any "Negroes" in Martinique as people from so many different races have mixed throughout the island's history. So to him there is not any point for Caribbeans in looking for a lost ancestor in Africa and there is more sense for them in taking pride of their "bastardisation".

Very much in the style of Chamoiseau's Texaco, the author offers a vivid and colorful depiction of the lives and manners of the natives of Martinique. The story spans during WW2 when Martinique was under the rule of Admiral Robert, a navy captain freshly sent by the French head of state and collaborator Marshal Petain to administer the island.

Confiant describes a time of deprivation for the vast majority of the population and narrates with humour the adventures of racially and socially-diverse characters: two mulatto teachers, an uneducated black freedom fighter, a prostitute, a Communist Indian farmer and resistance fighter as well as some members of the ruling white "békés" caste (white supremacists and descendants of the island's slave owners).

The novel stands out for its amazing historical relevance and linguistic inventiveness with a large Creole influence. By the way Confiant has written five novels in Creole--a very uncommon writing language because of its being based on orality and folk tales. An excellent novel to explore the intricacies of the relationship between France and its former colonies. I enjoyed the natives' funny gossip suffused with black magic, Christian bigotry and an undefined chauvinism. It is an ode to the spirit of resilience of these Creole islanders whose stories are not written in French history books.

[Benoît · Rating 3 out of 5]

This first book in French from Confiant (after a couple in Créole) bears much resemblance to Chamoiseau's first two, both in writing and structure. After all, they were friends and both engaged in creating a movement, with a language that is a tribute to oral speech and creole lives. I love the writing, it's lively and creative. My complaint is about the general approach. As in Chronique des Sept Misères, the whole focal point is on the landscape of characters and their destinies, in the historical setting of the second World War. But I tend to forget each character after they've been introduced, one after the other in a long string, and here it doesn't help that we have two teachers. The characters interact relatively little, though their meetings often strike and change them, in a flash. I find that the characters are not really gripping individually. They are focused on little but the two fundamental objectives of survival and falling in love, they trick life though more often than not they're on the passive end and are tricked by life, and thus they seem to share a general mood of melancholy and resignation as their mode de vie is under the assault of "circumstances" (social hierarchies, the war). Because everything is passing, the book seems eventless or stuck in an eternal present. The character's resources are often similar and often illusory, and thus always tend towards the tragic.