Walking on fire: Limits, transgressions and possibilities in the worlds of literature. An interview with Ananda Devi

Abstract

In the following interview, celebrated Francophone Mauritian writer Ananda Devi considers the implications of her movements between literary worlds, publishers, series and languages as well as her insurgences as a writer and as a woman. Walking on fire, Devi avers, is an apt metaphor for describing her personal and creative approach to navigating the incendiary lines striating her path. Engaging with her most recent works, including Ceux du Large, Danser sur tes Braises suivi de Six Décennies and Fardo, Devi comments on her role as a writer, the manifold potentials of literature and the differing labels and expectations routinely heaped upon her in the Francophone and Anglophone worlds. Over the course of this exchange, she also discusses the reception of her work in France and elsewhere; her experimentations with self-translation and ekphrasis; and the process of creating art during the Covid-19 pandemic. Throughout, Devi expresses her fierce commitment to transgressing limits and taking literature into new terrains.