Origins, plural
When Englishman Edward Lanzer Joseph (1792-1838) landed in Trinidad in 1817, the archipelago had already changed hands several times, and had finally been awarded to his native country fifteen years earlier, following the Peace of Amiens. Tensions were nonetheless high, a point he made - not without a fierce sense of humor - in the musical farce Martial Law in two acts, which he wrote and directed. The issue of slavery, and the underlying question of equality between peoples, stirred people's minds, as confirmed by the archipelago's first novel - Emmanuel Appadocca or Blighted Life: A Tale of the Boucaneers (1854) - written by Michel Maxwell Philip (1829-1888), who drew on his own experience as the illegitimate son of a white planter and a mixed-race woman. John Jacob Thomas (1841-1889) and Henry Sylvester-Williams (1869-1911) also took a stand in favor of the Black population of the West Indies. The former published Froudacity (1889), a refutation of the racist theories of Oxford historian James Anthony Froude, while the latter was one of the founders of the Pan-African movement.
History, with its capital letter, has once again caught up with Alfred Mendes, a Trinidadian born in 1897 into a family of Portuguese origin. His involvement in the First World War inspired his grandson, director Sam Mendès, to release his film 1917 in 2019. On his return, Mendes became involved in literature, co-founding the short-lived Trinidad magazine in 1929 with CRL James (1901-1989) - an influential voice of post-decolonization - and returning to The Beacon in 1931. This periodical, which was published monthly until 1933, was important for bringing together the first generation of authors ready to assert their literary and linguistic particularities, in opposition to European conventions. In addition to Mendes, who went on to publish two novels(Picth Lake in 1934, Black Fauns in 1935) and James, whose Black Jacobins is published by Amsterdam, the "Beacon Group" included Albert Gomes, founding member and future politician, Ralph de Boissière (1907-2008), a realist novelist committed to social issues(Crow Jewel, Rum and Coca-Cola, No Saddles for Kangaroos), and artist Hugh Stollmeyer. The theatrical genre was driven by William Archibald, who found success on Broadway with his adaptation of Henry James, first on stage and then on film(Les Innocents, scripted with Truman Capote), and by Errol Gaston Hill, who devoted himself to developing the West Indian scene and writing(Man Better Man, 1964).
The situation
From the late '50s onwards, the small archipelago's openness to the world was evident, and this was reflected in a growing number of translations into our language. In L'Ascension de Moïse (Éditions Caribéennes), Samuel Selvon focuses on exile, portraying a character who leaves Jamaica to seek his fortune in London. In L'Oiseau zombie (Drapper éditeur), Ismith Khan presents the other side of the same coin: this initiatory tale with a strong autobiographical accent describes what Trinidadians of Indian origin have to overcome by staying on the island. Indeed, Khan shares Indian ancestry with V.S. Naipaul (1932-2018), their forebears having come to the West Indies to replace freed slaves on the plantations. They also share a disillusioned view of the island where they were born, as confirmed by the future Nobel Prize winner's first novel, Le Masseur mystique (Grasset), or his collection of short stories describing a slum area of Port-of-Spain in the 1940s(Miguel Street, Gallimard). It was with Une Maison pour Monsieur Biswas (Gallimard), a biography of his father that did not ignore the humiliations the latter had to endure as a Hindu in Trinidad, that he met with undiminished success, although some detractors criticized him for his constant pessimism and scathing criticism of post-colonial societies. Defeatism or clear-sightedness, whatever the case, Trinidad and Tobago has been the subject of much ink among writers, who take pleasure in drawing its portrait from every angle. Earl Lovelace evokes Black Power and the weight of tradition in C'est juste un film and Le Sel (Le Temps des Cerises) respectively, Lawrence Scott writes about curses in Balai de sorcière (Mémoire d'encrier) and leprosy in Calypso la nuit (Sabine Wespieser), Merle Hodge describes social inequality in Crick, crack, Monkey (Karthala) and Harold Sonny Ladoo describes misery in Nulle douleur comme ce corps (Les Allusifs). We could also mention À Trinidad, vivait une famille by Shiva Naipaul (1945-1985), a great fresco haunted by demons published by L'Olivier, or Ramabai Espinet who, in his first novel, Le Pont suspendu ou l'histoire jamais racontée (éditions du Rocher), traces the journey of a woman who is led to question her family's past and the difficulty of the different peoples of Trinidad to live together.
Leaving, without forgetting
Yet writers of the second half of the twentieth century still seem to want to broaden the horizon, both literally and figuratively, embracing the paradox of departure that helps us better reflect on where we come from. Thus, poet Dionne Brand - who left her native island for good and moved to Toronto in 1970, at the age of 17 - questions the impossible return, dual identity and diaspora, resonating with geography and psychology, slavery and trauma. She is published in French by Tryptique with Ossuaires and L'Amour, à peu près. Neil Bissoondath, nephew of V.S. Naipaul, also moved to Canada from Trinidad and Tobago, where he was born in 1955. His work is in the vein of the realist novel, which questions the past(Un Baume pour le cœur, Folio), social issues(À l'aube de lendemains précaires, Boréal) and the difficulty of being oneself(Cartes postales de l'enfer, Phébus). Heritage is also at the heart of Fleur de nuit (Éditions 10-18) by Shani Mootoo, born in Dublin in 1957 to Trinidadian parents, and the work of playwright André Alexis, whose titles leave no doubt as to his obsessions: Enfance et Exil (Éditions Fides) and Le Langage de la meute (Québec-Amérique). American Robert Antoni, winner of the 1992 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, explores his "imaginary island", the one on which his parents were born(Carnaval published by Denoël, Goyaves coupées or Postscriptum à la civilisation des Simiens published by Long Cours). Last but not least, women's literature is amply represented by Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw, daughter of Derek Walcott (1930-2017), Saint Lucian and winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize, whose collection of short stories La Saison des cerfs-volants has been translated by Éditions Zoé, as well as Claire Adam and her bestseller L'Enfant en or (Le Livre de Poche) and Monique Roffey, whose tale La Sirène de Black Conch (Mémoire d'encrier, 2023) sparks the imagination... and reflection.
