Crossing The Atlantic: Bouqui and Malice, a Caribbean Counterpoetics

Abstract

This article is a comparative study of trickster tales from a Haitian collection (Le Roman de Bouqui, by Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain) and a Senegalese collection (La Belle histoire de Leuk-le-lièvre, by Léopold Sédar Senghor and Abdoulaye Sadji). The analysis traces the transformation the stories underwent when they were transmitted as oral literature to slaves in the New World. Drawing on Maryse Condé's work, I relate Bouqui and Malice, two of the most famous characters of Caribbean folklore, to the bossale and the créole, two figures associated with slavery as well as with continuing social divisions in Haitian society. Using Glissant's concept of the contre-poétique, I investigate Bouqui and Malice's countercultural values as embedded in their stories, arguing that the storytellers crafted a form of fictional revenge through their folktales: by subverting the plot of the African tale, they confronted and challenged the dominant colonial discourse.