Book of the Dead

Abstract

Lasana M. Sekou, Book of the Dead. St Martin: House of Nehesi Publishers, 2016. 68 pp.LASANA SEKOU'S BOOK OF THE DEAD WAS PRESENTED at the St Martin XIV International Book Fair in June 2016. St Martin, with its multicultural calabash, is indeed a perfect venue for an international book fair, being a place where a multitude of cultures, literatures and colours can come together to create something new and vigorous.Today the Caribbean is a most dynamic literary environment, where literary festivals are organised one after another and, most importantly, where a new use of language is taking form, or, better, where language happens. Sekou has already shown in his vast body of work how language can become a formidable tool in the hands of an artist who, in a true re-invention of modernist techniques, makes us see, makes us hear, makes us understand.In truth, when we start reading Book of the Dead we are immediately beguiled by its language, then we realise that language is so interwoven with content that it would be impossible to discuss one without considering the other. Events are reflected on by a narrating voice that shifts back and forth through myths and actual reports, blurring past and present in a continuum of devastating images, making the reader ponder over the connection between literature, culture, revolutions and the transformation of societies.Sekou's craft in dealing with words allows him to combine a wide variety of languages - of enslaved African people, of colonisers and slave traders, and of the Caribbean diaspora - with the sounds of today's multifaceted Caribbean islands, to create a new and exciting language. The journey that Sekou takes us on with his new collection is, as is invariably the case in his writings, a journey across very stormy seas - full of challenges and scary seascapes.Book of the Dead stirs emotions and elicits a strong reaction from readers; the poems turn the passive act of reading into an adventure, an actual journey on high seas, where we do not know where we will land. We turn the first page and we are already urged to choose between Lucifer and Legba. But how would we know which god will help us get out of Babylon and head across borders and boundaries towards islands that are depicted as metaphors for Jesus - sold, enslaved, stripped naked, covered in blood? Will we find an answer at the end of the journey? Will the author offer a consolatory answer, or will he leave us hanging at the threshold of this New World?A reader might ask herself whether she should embark on such a journey at all - to be questioned, prodded, pushed to the limits. The answer is yes, of course - even though upon embarking she is not offered any guarantees: the journey might have its rewards, or not, might end with redemption, or not.While praising Sekou's language, one should never forget that his works also take the form of a cry for the independence of St Martin and its people. The small island is in fact one of the last existing colonies, still under the control of the Dutch and French governments. The aspirations for full independence are passionately pursued, and Sekou is viewed in St Martin as the champion of the independence struggle.Remembering means also re-living the past, granting it a new life. And as painful as it might be, individual remembering is a step towards constructing or creating a collective identity. Collective memory is a product of individual memories - family recollections, biographies and autobiographies - which, though often influenced by the present or by personal interpretations, when passed on from generation to generation, after having been processed by the creative mind of true artists, contribute to building our identity. Memory, though the bearer of immortality, is fragile: it can be tricky or misleading, it can be obscured by reticence, by involuntary amnesic aphasia. …