L'exprience de la violence dans le roman mauricien francophone de la nouvelle gnration

Abstract

Francophone Mauritian literature has been occupied, for some years now, by the question of violence. A new generation of writers is engaged in redefining the poetics of insular space, from both an aesthetic and an ethical point of view, focusing on the violence that marks and mars postcolonial Mauritian society. This article discusses the poetics of this new writing as seen in the works of Nathacha Appanah-Mouriquand, Ananda Devi, Shenaz Patel and Carl de Souza. It addresses first the representation of violence and describes how this new writing deconstructs clichs as well as formulaic descriptions of the island, while providing more realistic descriptions of contemporary Mauritian society, with its episodes of violence that can sometimes be extreme. The article will then address the violence of writing itself, and the subversive aspects of language and of the novel in a contemporary literary context that is increasingly subject to ethical and aesthetic transgression.