« Laisse-moi te montrer mon pays ! » Le regard du touriste dans les écrits des Indes néerlandaises Occidentales

Abstract

Numerous texts by Surinamese, Dutch-Antillean and Aruban writers deal with the Middle Passage (the forced “migration” from Africa to the New World) and the life-long enslavement of millions of Africans. Strangely enough, in the very same period slavery was flourishing, tourism came into being. The exotic other became an object of western interest. What did the western world bring about in the head of the other ? In many Caribbean texts the tourist’s view is visible : the tension between the own view and the view of the other comes to the surface, sometimes explicitly, sometimes more covertly, at times in the ways language is used. For Caribbean writers, the struggle with literary imagination has eradicated the tourist from their conscience. On the basis of texts from the 18th through the 21st century, this paper tries to unravel the tourist’s view, first in the Histoire d’une franco-indienne ; ecrite par elle-meme (1787), subsequently in texts by R. Dobru, Albert Helman, Cola Debrot, Trefossa, Sonia Garmers, Denis Henriquez and Chitra Gajadin.