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Solibo Magnifique
Fort-de-France, pendant le carnaval. Devant son public médusé, le conteur Solibo Magnifique meurt, foudroyé par une égorgette de la parole. Autostrangulation ? Ou meurtre ? Toute l'assistance est soupçonnée, notamment Bateau Français, dit Congo, fabricant de râpes à manioc, et qui aurait empoisonné Solibo avec un fruit confit. Bouaffesse et Évariste Pilon mènent l'enquête, allant jusqu'à garder à vue Patrick Chamoiseau lui-même. Quant à Congo, suspect numéro un, il sera laminé. Ce que, d'interrogatoire en interrogatoire, les deux policiers vont pourtant révéler, c'est l'univers caduque, au seuil de l'oubli, des Maîtres de la parole, des grands conteurs qui avaient, tel Solibo, le goût du mot, du discours sans virgule.
256 pages, Pocket Book
First published January 1, 1988
23 people are currently reading
546 people want to read
About the author
Patrick Chamoiseau
92 books199 followersPatrick Chamoiseau is a French author from Martinique known for his work in the créolité movement.
Chamoiseau was born on December 3, 1953 in Fort-de-France, Martinique, where he currently resides. After he studied law in Paris he returned to Martinique inspired by Édouard Glissant to take a close interest in Creole culture. Chamoiseau is the author of a historical work on the Antilles under the reign of Napoléon Bonaparte and several non-fiction books which include Éloge de la créolité (In Praise of Creoleness), co-authored with Jean Bernabé and Raphaël Confiant. Awarded the Prix Carbet (1990) for Antan d’enfance. His novel Texaco was awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1992, and was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. It has been described as "a masterpiece, the work of a genius, a novel that deserves to be known as much as Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth and Cesaire’s Return to My Native Land".
Chamoiseau may also safely be considered as one of the most innovative writers to hit the French literary scene since Louis-Ferdinand Céline. His freeform use of French language — a highly complex yet fluid mixture of constant invention and "creolism" — fuels a poignant and sensuous depiction of Martinique people in particular and humanity at large.
(from Wikipedia)
Chamoiseau was born on December 3, 1953 in Fort-de-France, Martinique, where he currently resides. After he studied law in Paris he returned to Martinique inspired by Édouard Glissant to take a close interest in Creole culture. Chamoiseau is the author of a historical work on the Antilles under the reign of Napoléon Bonaparte and several non-fiction books which include Éloge de la créolité (In Praise of Creoleness), co-authored with Jean Bernabé and Raphaël Confiant. Awarded the Prix Carbet (1990) for Antan d’enfance. His novel Texaco was awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1992, and was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. It has been described as "a masterpiece, the work of a genius, a novel that deserves to be known as much as Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth and Cesaire’s Return to My Native Land".
Chamoiseau may also safely be considered as one of the most innovative writers to hit the French literary scene since Louis-Ferdinand Céline. His freeform use of French language — a highly complex yet fluid mixture of constant invention and "creolism" — fuels a poignant and sensuous depiction of Martinique people in particular and humanity at large.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
December 29, 2018
The action takes place in Fort-de-France, capital of Martinique, a French island in the Lesser Antilles, the chain of islands along the eastern edge of the Caribbean stretching from Puerto Rico to Trinidad. The island is considered not a colony, but French territory, and it’s a Department or province of France.
Solibo is one of the last story tellers. An older man, he begins speaking in the main square and folks gather around to hear his stories in a call-and-response format. The main character who tells us Solibo’s story is the author – he’s a character in his own book – a kind of participant observer.
One day the story teller dies suddenly in the middle of his performance – Did he choke? Stroke? Heart attack? The police choose to believe he didn’t die of natural causes and use that as an excuse to round up his audience of homeless people, prostitutes and ne’re-do-wells. They take them in for questioning and beat and threaten them. One dies from the beatings. In the process we learn a bit about their lives and hardships.
Most of these folks don’t speak or understand formal French but use a French Creole dialect that the police don’t use, or don’t want to use or understand. They assume many are homeless, so they don’t ask “where do you live?” they ask, “where do you sleep?” They assume many are more or less unemployed so they don’t ask where do you work?” they ask “what do you do for the ‘beke?’ -the ‘white man’ who still controls the economy. “They are a bushel of those unclassifiable people who still manage to escape social services.”
Through the story, the book gives us a treatise on race and ethnicity in the Caribbean. We are told in an afterword that the author is a proponent of ‘Creolite’ – the preservation of the Creole language and the recognition of its speakers as a distinct ethnicity neither European, African nor Asian. I’m sure the varieties of wordings presented problems to the translator (it was translated from the French and Creole).
Most folks in the story, called Creoles, are black by American standards, but the author tells us that folks at the bottom of the totem pole, like most characters in the book, call themselves ‘blackmen.’ We are told that the name Solibo is Creole for “blackman fallen to his last peg – and no ladder to climb back up.”
There are also ‘congos,’ a pejorative term for field workers who are recent descendants of African slaves or immigrants. ‘Chabins’ are light-skinned mixed race folks with African facial features but red or blonde hair. There are East Indians, called pejoratively, ‘coolies,’ and Columbian prostitutes, and ‘Syrian’ (actually Lebanese) merchants. In addition, Creole immigrants from adjacent islands are treated almost as separate ethnic groups with their own stereotypes, such as Guadeloupeans and Dominicans (from the neighboring island of Dominica, not the Dominican Republic). And as mentioned above, the ‘bekes’ are the well-off white descendants of the old planter class. Wow, let’s talk about diversity.
There is much good writing:
“The harvest of fate that I shall narrate to you happened on a day whose date is unimportant since time signs no calendar here.” And later: “Where does time happen [inspector]? Some say it’s in France, that there, there is time.”
“…happy as chiggers dug into a dirty foot.”
“His face has less sense in it than a rock in a river.”
“If he had been a vegetable, he would have naturally been a hot pepper, attracted to all sauces.”
“…tall, his belly collapsing above his long legs, the bags beneath his eyes stored his tally of drinks and sleepless nights.”
“They bandaged the vendor’s skull with the precious gestures of a starving man unearthing a yam.”
“…from the word you build the village, but from silence you construct the world.”
“…she liked to suck on three things: her pipe every night, vermouth every Sunday, and rum all the time!”
A good story. The information about the various ethnicities is well-worked into the book, not at all in an academic fashion.
The author is best known for his book Texaco (the name of a sprawling shantytown in Martinique), which won France’s Prix Goncourt in 1992.
Map from paradise-islands.com
Fort de France photo from blog.kudoybook.com
Photo of the author from telerama.fr
Solibo is one of the last story tellers. An older man, he begins speaking in the main square and folks gather around to hear his stories in a call-and-response format. The main character who tells us Solibo’s story is the author – he’s a character in his own book – a kind of participant observer.
One day the story teller dies suddenly in the middle of his performance – Did he choke? Stroke? Heart attack? The police choose to believe he didn’t die of natural causes and use that as an excuse to round up his audience of homeless people, prostitutes and ne’re-do-wells. They take them in for questioning and beat and threaten them. One dies from the beatings. In the process we learn a bit about their lives and hardships.
Most of these folks don’t speak or understand formal French but use a French Creole dialect that the police don’t use, or don’t want to use or understand. They assume many are homeless, so they don’t ask “where do you live?” they ask, “where do you sleep?” They assume many are more or less unemployed so they don’t ask where do you work?” they ask “what do you do for the ‘beke?’ -the ‘white man’ who still controls the economy. “They are a bushel of those unclassifiable people who still manage to escape social services.”
Through the story, the book gives us a treatise on race and ethnicity in the Caribbean. We are told in an afterword that the author is a proponent of ‘Creolite’ – the preservation of the Creole language and the recognition of its speakers as a distinct ethnicity neither European, African nor Asian. I’m sure the varieties of wordings presented problems to the translator (it was translated from the French and Creole).
Most folks in the story, called Creoles, are black by American standards, but the author tells us that folks at the bottom of the totem pole, like most characters in the book, call themselves ‘blackmen.’ We are told that the name Solibo is Creole for “blackman fallen to his last peg – and no ladder to climb back up.”
There are also ‘congos,’ a pejorative term for field workers who are recent descendants of African slaves or immigrants. ‘Chabins’ are light-skinned mixed race folks with African facial features but red or blonde hair. There are East Indians, called pejoratively, ‘coolies,’ and Columbian prostitutes, and ‘Syrian’ (actually Lebanese) merchants. In addition, Creole immigrants from adjacent islands are treated almost as separate ethnic groups with their own stereotypes, such as Guadeloupeans and Dominicans (from the neighboring island of Dominica, not the Dominican Republic). And as mentioned above, the ‘bekes’ are the well-off white descendants of the old planter class. Wow, let’s talk about diversity.
There is much good writing:
“The harvest of fate that I shall narrate to you happened on a day whose date is unimportant since time signs no calendar here.” And later: “Where does time happen [inspector]? Some say it’s in France, that there, there is time.”
“…happy as chiggers dug into a dirty foot.”
“His face has less sense in it than a rock in a river.”
“If he had been a vegetable, he would have naturally been a hot pepper, attracted to all sauces.”
“…tall, his belly collapsing above his long legs, the bags beneath his eyes stored his tally of drinks and sleepless nights.”
“They bandaged the vendor’s skull with the precious gestures of a starving man unearthing a yam.”
“…from the word you build the village, but from silence you construct the world.”
“…she liked to suck on three things: her pipe every night, vermouth every Sunday, and rum all the time!”
A good story. The information about the various ethnicities is well-worked into the book, not at all in an academic fashion.
The author is best known for his book Texaco (the name of a sprawling shantytown in Martinique), which won France’s Prix Goncourt in 1992.
Map from paradise-islands.com
Fort de France photo from blog.kudoybook.com
Photo of the author from telerama.fr
August 30, 2012
Disliked the writing style. Every sentence is filled with extraneous information. The writing is disjointed and confusing, stuffed with words that must be found either in the glossaries at the end of the book or translation notes in tiny text at the bottom of the pages.
Every time I pick up this book I think, now I will understand, I must have been tired last time I tried to read it. But every time the same thing happens. I don't understand what the heck is being said and think: jeez, get to the point! Figuring out what is being said seems just not worth the effort.
Quitting after 85 pages and three days of really trying.
Every time I pick up this book I think, now I will understand, I must have been tired last time I tried to read it. But every time the same thing happens. I don't understand what the heck is being said and think: jeez, get to the point! Figuring out what is being said seems just not worth the effort.
Quitting after 85 pages and three days of really trying.
November 15, 2009
I love this book because it uses meta-fiction so naturally to bring the author into the narrative, and it has a very dry use of humor. I particularly love how the author uses great narratorial techniques to show how authorities automatically dismiss and denigrate the poor people they encounter and how the author gets wrapped up into the same shocking off-hand dismissal. It's brilliant.
This is the kind of writing that I find says more about the human spirit and says it more accurately than other books such as A FINE BALANCE. A Fine Balance is Dickensean yes, but it damns everyone eternally. The rich crush the poor deliberately, etc. It misses the point that everyone sees themselves as the good guys. In A Fine Balance everyone really poor gets caught in the same kind of crushing box over and over again--as if they can learn nothing.
Solibo shows much of the same issues -- yes, everybody's poor and leaping around to survive, but the spirit is not meek and clueless. When people are oppressed, they return fire if and when they can--the author joining in with them.
This is the kind of writing that I find says more about the human spirit and says it more accurately than other books such as A FINE BALANCE. A Fine Balance is Dickensean yes, but it damns everyone eternally. The rich crush the poor deliberately, etc. It misses the point that everyone sees themselves as the good guys. In A Fine Balance everyone really poor gets caught in the same kind of crushing box over and over again--as if they can learn nothing.
Solibo shows much of the same issues -- yes, everybody's poor and leaping around to survive, but the spirit is not meek and clueless. When people are oppressed, they return fire if and when they can--the author joining in with them.
January 23, 2022
As a speaker of French and Creole myself, I found the use of hybrid language very original. It really preserves and showcases the local touch with the Creole language overwhelmingly more present than in Texaco or Slave Old Man.
Patrick Chamoiseau pays tribute to the Caribbean storytellers, usually men who used to tell stories about the West Indian folklore, an almost exclusively oral tradition as stories were told in Creole passed on from generation to generation but almost never written on paper.
My generation knows many of the expressions used by these creole"conteurs" (storytellers) but their stories and legends are now almost forgotten. The author attempted to revive those days and he did very well. Yet, I have mixed feelings about this novel. The plot was a bit confusing to me. I was not enthralled as I was by his other novels--above mentioned which I adore.
Patrick Chamoiseau pays tribute to the Caribbean storytellers, usually men who used to tell stories about the West Indian folklore, an almost exclusively oral tradition as stories were told in Creole passed on from generation to generation but almost never written on paper.
My generation knows many of the expressions used by these creole"conteurs" (storytellers) but their stories and legends are now almost forgotten. The author attempted to revive those days and he did very well. Yet, I have mixed feelings about this novel. The plot was a bit confusing to me. I was not enthralled as I was by his other novels--above mentioned which I adore.
May 17, 2019
Chamoiseau's Solibo is a response to Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. Solibo's fall is accompanied by a thunderous beating of a drum and not the long peal of thunder of the original - the author reproduces the sound of the drum in an appendix, rather than on the opening page of his novel, and the wake is wetted with rum rather than porter - the celebrants are not even aware of the hero's death, but take him to be marking a long pause in his tale. Finally they determine that his own speech has cut his throat - un égorgette de la parole.
The book is, at one level, about the tension between language and speech. If a language is a dialect with an army - and, above all, a system of writing, then parole, in Solibo's universe, is the breath of those who live. Chamoiseau, who introduces himself as a character in the novel, and who tries to see himself as bearing witness, attempts to note down Solibo's words, an endeavour that the master of speech regards with amused contempt, although it is the possibility of reducing his living speech to script that is, the reader understands, the ultimate cause of his death.
Solibo's death becomes official when the police intervene. The policemen, at first lead by the sinister brute whose name translates into English as something like Muddyarse, declare him dead and immediately begin a murder investigation. Suspecting a plot involving all the witnesses to the death, they are constantly hindered in their attempts to work out what happened by their insistence on using their officialese - a rudimentary colonial French - which is blocked by several of the witnesses who will only speak Creole - the language which Solibo himself spoke. For Muddyarse, even the dead man's name is inadmissable :
"Tu dis Solibo mais c'est pas un nom, c'est un nègrerie, son nom exact c'est quoi?"
Chamoiseau, like Joyce, writes from a periphery that is in many ways a centre. Just as Ireland was the first of England's colonies - unless we count England itself, suffering even today beneath the Norman Yoke - so Martinique, along with its other Caribbean possessions is at the centre of modern French history. Like Joyce, confronted with the power of colonialism, Solibo adopts silence, exile and cunning. His cunning is that of the magician, his silence is that of word-weaver, and his exile is imposed and unspoken. Chamoiseau himself seems to waver, but is tight-webbed between Aimé Césaire's négritude and Solibo's Christ-like retreat from both the language of the oppressor, and, in the end, from language itself.
Another large reference in the book is Rabelais. It is peppered with hilarious monsters - two of the policemen could step straight out of the world of San Antonio, and their first victim, Lolita (Doudou Menar) is a towering figure of female energy and power before they put an end to her - at their second attempt. They also resemble the fundamental spirits that are found in the constellations of practices and beliefs common to the African diaspora, the Martiniquan form of which is known as quimbois. Solibo himself has many of the characteristics of the quimboisier or shaman. He feeds a multitude with a single fish, brings about miraculous cures through his benign presence, confuses the spirits of the wrong-doer until they become docile enough to drown themselves in rum. Chamoiseau's writing is nothing if not eclectic.
The book is, at one level, about the tension between language and speech. If a language is a dialect with an army - and, above all, a system of writing, then parole, in Solibo's universe, is the breath of those who live. Chamoiseau, who introduces himself as a character in the novel, and who tries to see himself as bearing witness, attempts to note down Solibo's words, an endeavour that the master of speech regards with amused contempt, although it is the possibility of reducing his living speech to script that is, the reader understands, the ultimate cause of his death.
Solibo's death becomes official when the police intervene. The policemen, at first lead by the sinister brute whose name translates into English as something like Muddyarse, declare him dead and immediately begin a murder investigation. Suspecting a plot involving all the witnesses to the death, they are constantly hindered in their attempts to work out what happened by their insistence on using their officialese - a rudimentary colonial French - which is blocked by several of the witnesses who will only speak Creole - the language which Solibo himself spoke. For Muddyarse, even the dead man's name is inadmissable :
"Tu dis Solibo mais c'est pas un nom, c'est un nègrerie, son nom exact c'est quoi?"
Chamoiseau, like Joyce, writes from a periphery that is in many ways a centre. Just as Ireland was the first of England's colonies - unless we count England itself, suffering even today beneath the Norman Yoke - so Martinique, along with its other Caribbean possessions is at the centre of modern French history. Like Joyce, confronted with the power of colonialism, Solibo adopts silence, exile and cunning. His cunning is that of the magician, his silence is that of word-weaver, and his exile is imposed and unspoken. Chamoiseau himself seems to waver, but is tight-webbed between Aimé Césaire's négritude and Solibo's Christ-like retreat from both the language of the oppressor, and, in the end, from language itself.
Another large reference in the book is Rabelais. It is peppered with hilarious monsters - two of the policemen could step straight out of the world of San Antonio, and their first victim, Lolita (Doudou Menar) is a towering figure of female energy and power before they put an end to her - at their second attempt. They also resemble the fundamental spirits that are found in the constellations of practices and beliefs common to the African diaspora, the Martiniquan form of which is known as quimbois. Solibo himself has many of the characteristics of the quimboisier or shaman. He feeds a multitude with a single fish, brings about miraculous cures through his benign presence, confuses the spirits of the wrong-doer until they become docile enough to drown themselves in rum. Chamoiseau's writing is nothing if not eclectic.
June 28, 2007
The art of storytelling is alive and well but in Chamoiseau's tale the storyteller has done the ultimate -- he has become a magnificent tale. A story of clashing cultures and the misunderstanding of an art form, this great book is a teaching tool for the beauty and art of wordsmithing.
November 9, 2025
Úžasná kniha o kreolském vypravěči a jeho místě v dnešním světě, o přechodu od orálního k psanému vyprávění a o smrti v moderní době.
April 4, 2019
J'ai rien compris 🙃
May 25, 2014
Beautiful, florid, transporting descriptions, captures the violently ludicrous and rampaging nature of law enforcement, and a lament to the fading art of storytelling in a world very different from the one I'm used to. Gorgeous.
March 16, 2011
Beautiful, brave, cutting, elegiac, comic, cruel, bewildered and irreverent. Funny and horrifying and horrifyingly funny.
December 9, 2025
this book was leant to me by my good friend Nathan who I believe picked it up at a charity shop, i am currently on a coach to see him an return it to him.
well, it’s hard to know where to start with this one. aesthetically, i didn’t enjoy a lot of it when reading it, save for the last 40 pages i’ve just read on this here coach. however, it seems clear that the aesthetic style highlights my throughly western attitudes towards aesthetics of the word. i know this to be true because i really enjoyed the end, written in a style im very much used to from russian to american to french & english literature. he self references this word scratching way of finding a means to merge himself with Solido as means to merge himself with this unreachable dying creole world which emerges from the largely dead and thoroughly, ungoingly attacked and colonised worlds that are known to me, an englishman, by ‘Africa’, a board for which scrambling plays out, and ‘Martinique’, a department (of all words to describe a colony) of France. However, this acknowledgement of how colonialism is in my bones and brain, certainly and certainly not exclusively when it comes to reading literature, does nothing for my lack of enjoyment of these parts. I still can’t say I particularly enjoyed reading them and found them, as they absolutely are aiming to be, confusing, frenetic and largely a blurry scene of flurrying. It certainly depicts scenes at which I have no frame of reference for, additionally, I felt like there was a party going on next door that I could merely see but not enter with regards to the fact that this was written by the author in an anti-colonial or decolonisational language of french mixed with creole and creole mixed with french. A style of writing with brilliance that I read about, and thoroughly believe, but one that I have no access to. I can’t speak french, I know no creole, my copy was in english.
The police brutality and deaths and injuries are truly chilling, particularly at the end. The very ending I must say was somber, poetic, rather beautiful. The process of him writing in a familiar style to me, of despair then coming to terms with and practising this word scratching & then the attempts to remember Solibo Magnificent through peoples’ memory of his performances, climaxing and ending with a transcribed, or rather word scratched, performance by the master jobber PiPi, it was all so very beautiful. It felt thoroughly shakespearean, a pure appreciation for the word in and of itself, of performance, of a grass roots community theatre. It would also be poor of me to not mention the beautiful appreciation for the word, for speaking and language, throughout this book. Of this, I could go on and on. In fact, I imagine I will. I’m some half an hour drive now from Manchester in this coach I find myself in, soon to see Nathan, I look forward to engaging in the fleeting but dazzling exchange of the word that is
simple, one-of-kind, never to be repeated, never to be transcribed, casual conversation.
well, it’s hard to know where to start with this one. aesthetically, i didn’t enjoy a lot of it when reading it, save for the last 40 pages i’ve just read on this here coach. however, it seems clear that the aesthetic style highlights my throughly western attitudes towards aesthetics of the word. i know this to be true because i really enjoyed the end, written in a style im very much used to from russian to american to french & english literature. he self references this word scratching way of finding a means to merge himself with Solido as means to merge himself with this unreachable dying creole world which emerges from the largely dead and thoroughly, ungoingly attacked and colonised worlds that are known to me, an englishman, by ‘Africa’, a board for which scrambling plays out, and ‘Martinique’, a department (of all words to describe a colony) of France. However, this acknowledgement of how colonialism is in my bones and brain, certainly and certainly not exclusively when it comes to reading literature, does nothing for my lack of enjoyment of these parts. I still can’t say I particularly enjoyed reading them and found them, as they absolutely are aiming to be, confusing, frenetic and largely a blurry scene of flurrying. It certainly depicts scenes at which I have no frame of reference for, additionally, I felt like there was a party going on next door that I could merely see but not enter with regards to the fact that this was written by the author in an anti-colonial or decolonisational language of french mixed with creole and creole mixed with french. A style of writing with brilliance that I read about, and thoroughly believe, but one that I have no access to. I can’t speak french, I know no creole, my copy was in english.
The police brutality and deaths and injuries are truly chilling, particularly at the end. The very ending I must say was somber, poetic, rather beautiful. The process of him writing in a familiar style to me, of despair then coming to terms with and practising this word scratching & then the attempts to remember Solibo Magnificent through peoples’ memory of his performances, climaxing and ending with a transcribed, or rather word scratched, performance by the master jobber PiPi, it was all so very beautiful. It felt thoroughly shakespearean, a pure appreciation for the word in and of itself, of performance, of a grass roots community theatre. It would also be poor of me to not mention the beautiful appreciation for the word, for speaking and language, throughout this book. Of this, I could go on and on. In fact, I imagine I will. I’m some half an hour drive now from Manchester in this coach I find myself in, soon to see Nathan, I look forward to engaging in the fleeting but dazzling exchange of the word that is
simple, one-of-kind, never to be repeated, never to be transcribed, casual conversation.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 27, 2025
Solibo è un Narratore con la maiuscola, un cantore di parole, un maestro di storie raccontate tra musica e gestualità. Una notte di carnevale a Fort de France (Martinica), mentre si esibisce di fronte a un piccolo gruppo di amici e appassionati, tra cui lo stesso scrittore, cade a terra morto, ucciso “da uno strangolio di parole”. Arriva la polizia che pensa a un delitto, un avvelenamento, a questioni di rivalità e tutti gli spettatori vengono portati in caserma per essere interrogati. Non è un romanzo giallo dato che “al centro della narrazione non c’è la spiegazione di un fatto strano ma l’ordine che quel fatto sviluppa in sé e attorno a sé, il disegno, le immagini che si depositano intorno ad esso” ma una storia scoppiettante e divertente dove l’ironia si trasforma presto in malinconia e il grottesco qualche volta in tragedia. Un linguaggio colorato e infarcito di termini francesi e creoli, questi ultimi spesso incomprensibili e intraducibili, per raccontare di personaggi tipici di molta letteratura sudamericana: prostitute, musicanti, scaricatori, nullafacenti a vario titolo e la polizia, ottusa e cocciuta, che non esita a ricorrere alla violenza pur di estorcere quella verità che si vuole imporre come tale. Chi ha ucciso Solibo? I “tempi moderni” hanno segnato la fine della tradizione orale e dei cantori girovaghi come lui, “magnifique” perché tra gli ultimi rimasti era il più grande, anche se ormai il suo pubblico era ridotto al lumicino e viveva di mille mestieri. Allo scrittore l’arduo compito del “tracciatore di parole”, ovvero di mettere su carta una storia nata per essere recitata e la trascrizione dell’ultima esibizione di Solibo fino alle sue ultime parole “Patat’sa… “Patat’si” lo dimostra. Una lettura divertente, non troppo dispersiva e molto “caraibica” di un autore originario della Martinica che vuole far rivivere lingua e tradizioni creole nei suoi romanzi. Tre stelle e mezzo.
November 15, 2025
Indagine su un cantastorie al di sopra di ogni sospetto
L'idea era buona e piena di potenziale: un protagonista morto nelle prime pagine che diviene fulcro della narrazione e che aspira a simboleggiare un mondo e un'epoca - Solibo come archetipo di una Martinica che dimentica il proprio passato e che sprofonda nei peggiori malanni di una società estranea come quella coloniale (francese, nel caso particolare).
Il problema è però Chamoiseau non sa scegliere un registro univoco ed oscilla tra vari tipo di libro: la denuncia sociale, il divertente e vulcanico resoconto della vita, la riflessione metaletteraria, il viaggio nella memoria - e quindi ne risulta un testo interessante, sì, ma spesso squilibrato dove una lotta tra una donna e tre poliziotti sembra quasi un soggetto slapstick viene seguita da un tortura efferata di un anziano che culmina in una defenestrazione. L'autore è anche personaggio coinvolto nelle vicenda, ma rimane sostanzialmente passivo sospeso tra l'essere osservatore distaccato e attore attivo.
Ne consegue un materiale letterario disomogeneo e difficile da valutare: anche lo stile di scrittura non aiuta molto, sostanzialmente piano e con poche invenzioni letterarie, al di là dell'uso di vocaboli del luogo - anche la presentazione e riflessione sulla lingua suona incompleta, come il glossario in cui molte parole ed espressioni rilevanti non sono adeguatamente discusse.
L'idea era buona e piena di potenziale: un protagonista morto nelle prime pagine che diviene fulcro della narrazione e che aspira a simboleggiare un mondo e un'epoca - Solibo come archetipo di una Martinica che dimentica il proprio passato e che sprofonda nei peggiori malanni di una società estranea come quella coloniale (francese, nel caso particolare).
Il problema è però Chamoiseau non sa scegliere un registro univoco ed oscilla tra vari tipo di libro: la denuncia sociale, il divertente e vulcanico resoconto della vita, la riflessione metaletteraria, il viaggio nella memoria - e quindi ne risulta un testo interessante, sì, ma spesso squilibrato dove una lotta tra una donna e tre poliziotti sembra quasi un soggetto slapstick viene seguita da un tortura efferata di un anziano che culmina in una defenestrazione. L'autore è anche personaggio coinvolto nelle vicenda, ma rimane sostanzialmente passivo sospeso tra l'essere osservatore distaccato e attore attivo.
Ne consegue un materiale letterario disomogeneo e difficile da valutare: anche lo stile di scrittura non aiuta molto, sostanzialmente piano e con poche invenzioni letterarie, al di là dell'uso di vocaboli del luogo - anche la presentazione e riflessione sulla lingua suona incompleta, come il glossario in cui molte parole ed espressioni rilevanti non sono adeguatamente discusse.
May 10, 2018
A murder mystery- sort of. The main character, Solibo Magnifique, dies in the first chapter. The remainder of the book is an attempt to understand the meaning of both his life and death. Solibo, we learn, is a Martinique expression meaning "failure" or "down and out". After the death of his mother, Solibo becomes a child of the streets, and acquires the nickname Solibo. He involves into "un homme de la parole", a raconteur. And with his death, the author chronicles the death, as he sees it, of the Creole oral tradition, replaced ironically, by the French language (which the book is written in) and those, like the author, for whom story telling is a written, not a spoken, art. The book is difficult at times both for the language, which blends formal French with Creole in a way that is sometimes difficult to follow (at least for those, like me who don't speak or read Creole), and also for the realistic descriptions of the casual violence visited on the poor people of the island by the police, even when these police are themselves Creole. Nonetheless, I enjoyed this chance to be part of a different world, one that is disappearing as we read.
November 21, 2022
Delightful, often funny or burlesque, though the story is rather horrible. Something of Chinua Achebe's "Things fall apart" with a kind of craziness that Kennedy Toole would have praised.
Chamoiseau's skill in world-building is really great, and the characters, even minor ones, are rendered familiar with just a few sentences. Besides I learnt a lot about my country's handling of Justice in those days in the West Indies (I'm sure hatred still lives on, you only have to remember how the French media treated the Martiniquais who refused that useless Covid vaccine !!) . Chamoiseau is really a master of style and plot design. And poetry is everywhere, even in dreary and macrabre settings. Loved it.
Chamoiseau's skill in world-building is really great, and the characters, even minor ones, are rendered familiar with just a few sentences. Besides I learnt a lot about my country's handling of Justice in those days in the West Indies (I'm sure hatred still lives on, you only have to remember how the French media treated the Martiniquais who refused that useless Covid vaccine !!) . Chamoiseau is really a master of style and plot design. And poetry is everywhere, even in dreary and macrabre settings. Loved it.
September 20, 2023
C’est le premier livre que j’ai lu de Patrick Chamoiseau et j’ai honte de dire que c’est le premier livre que j’ai lu par un écrivain des Caraïbes. Mais j’ai hâte de lire tout ce que Chamoiseau a écrit et j’ai hâte d’explorer davantage la littérature caribéenne et en particulier la narration.
C’est un récit beau mais bouleversant et profondément désolant sur les victimes souvent oubliées et ignorées du classisme et du colonialisme. Les thèmes de la brutalité policière, du mépris flagrant pour la vie des pauvres et de la disparition de nos cultures traditionnelles, comme la narration orale, sont toujours si répandus aujourd’hui.
La langue était si riche, belle et douce-amère. Chamoiseau est un merveilleux conteur !!
Qui pleure pour Solibo - je le fais !
C’est un récit beau mais bouleversant et profondément désolant sur les victimes souvent oubliées et ignorées du classisme et du colonialisme. Les thèmes de la brutalité policière, du mépris flagrant pour la vie des pauvres et de la disparition de nos cultures traditionnelles, comme la narration orale, sont toujours si répandus aujourd’hui.
La langue était si riche, belle et douce-amère. Chamoiseau est un merveilleux conteur !!
Qui pleure pour Solibo - je le fais !
September 7, 2020
This wild, brutal and riotously funny Keystone Cops scenario, presenting Justice (or as Joseph Conrad called it, Officialdom) from the point of view of the bottom rungs of Caribbean caste system, also presents and tries to reconcile the conflict between the oral and the literate, the past of the spoken word and the present of the written, and it experiments with a new form which the modern story (necessarily written) with the freedom and life of the world witnessed and interpreted through speech.
May 28, 2022
I found this very dificult to get into, was unable to read more than 2 or 3 pages a night.
However, after chapter 1, I really got into the book. THat is not to say the book got easier, it did not. I still had to regularly refer to the lsiting of characters and the glossary.
What I liked: this is a book that celebrates story telling and language. This is a book in which the common people are the main characters, the characters to be admired.
However, after chapter 1, I really got into the book. THat is not to say the book got easier, it did not. I still had to regularly refer to the lsiting of characters and the glossary.
What I liked: this is a book that celebrates story telling and language. This is a book in which the common people are the main characters, the characters to be admired.
September 10, 2025
I'm glad I read Slave Old Man first, as it was an easier introduction to Chamoiseau - based him this, I think I might have written him off as an interesting author but perhaps too much work for me to read more of.
The mix of language here is hard to follow in places, and really central to the novel. For parts of it, I was just going along with the flow of things. The end pulls it together a bit more. I am glad I read it, and I did enjoy it throughout, but it was definitely hard work.
The mix of language here is hard to follow in places, and really central to the novel. For parts of it, I was just going along with the flow of things. The end pulls it together a bit more. I am glad I read it, and I did enjoy it throughout, but it was definitely hard work.
April 21, 2025
hihi dit was echt een muzikaal detectieven-avontuurtje!! zeker niet gemakkelijk qua taalgebruik, maar de oraliteit zit er duidelijk in + het hele concept van het hoofdpersonage dat een symbolieke dood kent is ook echt zo geniaal uitgedacht. Geen idee of ik het ook echt zo uit een boekenrek zou halen en lezen, maar ik vond het alvast een zeer unieke ervaring!
October 30, 2020
I am a sucker for books like these that lament dying traditions, and this one while being hilarious and somewhat thrilling. Somehow it reminds me of Z by Vassillis Vassillikos, but the tone is completely different and it probably isn't the same in any meaningful way.
December 21, 2020
J'ai acheté Texaco au moment quand il est sorti, en 1992, mais je ne l'ai pas encore lu. Solibo Magnifique ne m'a pas donne le goût de lire un autre Chamoiseau tout de suite, mais un de ses jours, oui. Si je comprenais mieux le créole peut-être j'aurais ajoute une étoile.
June 6, 2021
First time reading a book as such. Was a vit difficult to read because of the writing style + mix if language. But that is also what intrigued me! Super interesting and engaging. By the end if it I was a bit tired and it took me a bit to understand what happened. But overall a good read!
January 15, 2023
All this is like in the works of Andrea Hirata. Because there are many technical similarities between them. Like many characters, colonial countries, strong local culture, there are flashbacks for important characters, characters of small people, dead customs.
March 18, 2023
Une fantastique expérience loufoque autour de "l'enquête" suivant la mort subite d'un conteur martiniquais, avec des moments d'anthologie (mention spéciale pour la fabuleuse Doudou-Ménard) malgré quelques longueurs.
March 8, 2024
to write a book that fully conveys the tragedy of the death of oral storytelling is a near-impossible task but this comes about as close as i think you can get. i hope there's a really amazing audiobook out there
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November 26, 2024Quel beau livre... j'adore le mélange du créole et du français. La mort de Solibo Magnificent est d'une certaine façon magnifique. Vraiment poétique avec beaucoup de commentaires sur l'idée de l'oralité et la langage... et ACAB !
January 12, 2026
4.5
quite the effort from Chamoiseau. Somehow used written word to pay homage to the anachronism that is oral history, illuminating, ironically through written word, what is lost when we defer to script over our own voices.
quite the effort from Chamoiseau. Somehow used written word to pay homage to the anachronism that is oral history, illuminating, ironically through written word, what is lost when we defer to script over our own voices.
May 18, 2017
J'ai lu et possède l'édition française.
January 24, 2018
Read for my Storytelling class. And it is Magnificent.
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