Khal Torabully
Encyclopedia
Khal Torabully is a Mauritian and French poet, who has coined the concept of "coolitude." Born in Mauritius
in 1956, in the capital city Port Louis
, his father was a Trinidadian sailor and his mother was a descendant of migrants from India
and Malaysia.
was made of various migratory waves, Torabully was soon immersed in Creole
, English
, French
, and to a lesser degree, in Bhojpuri, Urdu
, Arabic and Chinese
languages. The cultural mosaic
prevalent on the island accounts for his interest in diversity
and the discourse
of identity
in History
, as no nation
was existent in this country made of several communities. Torabully started writing poetry at a very early age, steadily explored the virtualities of the Encounter between cultures, histories and imaginaries.
in 1976, to study at the University of Lyon II. Here he explored language with a need to reinterpret if profoundly, mixing exile
with a desire to reconcile peoples across borders, through a "coral imaginary." After studies in Comparative Literature
, Torabully wrote a PHD
thesis
in Semiology of Poetics
with Michel Cusin. He was highly interested in T. S. Eliot
, Jacques Lacan
, Umberto Eco
, Roland Barthes
and Julia Kristeva
, among others he met in his doctoral researches on intertextuality
.
His poetry
was to bear the imprint of those various theories, though it remained sensual, espousing the inner rhythms of the sea and the vision of meeting others akin to the "aesthetic shock" experimented by Victor Segalen
. The poet framed many of his poetic texts with a distance from exotic views in which many encapsulated their experience of otherness
. In his early Fausse-île I and II, Torabully made a work of reinterpretation and started a quest for a poetic language mixing the music of various languages in an idiom imagined as "fossils of language".
His major work, Cale-d'étoiles-Coolitude gave new twists to the French language, subverting and enriching it with Indian
, Creole
and Scandinavian
sources. He argued for the centrality of the seavoyage in the indentured migration, going against the taboo of the kala pani or dark seas. In so doing, the poet framed his transcultural
vision in the concept of what he termed "coolitude."
Khal Torabully has won several literary awards, among which [Lettres-Frontière] (Switzerland), [Prix du Salon du Livre Insulaire] (France) and [Prix Missives] (France).
of coolitude was defined as the articulation of the imaginaries of mosaic
India and other human and cultural spaces. Starting from the derogatory word "coolie", which he revitalized, Torabully extended it to geographical and cultural migrants throughout the world. His poetry voiced the need of relation between the descents of the emancipated slaves and the indentured, allowing interplay with other cultures, thus clearly constructed far from essentialism
or an exclusive "nostalgia of the origins".
Devised to fill a gap in postmodern and postcolonial theories, coolitude addresses anthropologists, aestheticians, historians, literary scholars and multicultural analysts to grasp the complexity
of inter and transcultural exchanges in the modern world. What he terms the "coral imaginary" is a metaphor to this vision of the world. Torabully proposes an exchange between cultures and imaginaries on an egalitarian basis, underlining the necessity of muffles histories to engage in shared narratives and a mosaic identity construction.
The poet of négritude
Aimé Césaire
acclaimed his work "as containing all his humanity". The Martinican writer Raphaël Confiant
described his texts as having " a sovereign precision", and hailed Torabully as "the greatest poet of créolité
".
Torabully is the author of 15 poetry
books and of an essay co-authored with Marina Carter and has won several awards in France
, Switzerland
and Mauritius
.
Awards:
-Best script, MFDC, for centenary of Cinema, 1996.
-Best Director Short Feature Film at Zanzibar International Film Festival, 1998.
-Best Producer London Videographer’s Guilds 97.
-Laureate of Beaumarchais Foundation (Paris), 2OOO.
-Golden Award 2010 for Arab Media and Television Professionals, best documentary film, International Festival of Cairo, for The Maritime Memory of the Arabs, presented by Oman TV.
12 sept. 2011 ...
http://www.montraykreyol.org/spip.php?article4861
Mauritius
Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...
in 1956, in the capital city Port Louis
Port Louis
-Economy:The economy is dominated by its port, which handles Mauritius' international trade. The port was founded by the French who preferred Port Louis as the City is shielded by the Port Louis/Moka mountain range. It is the largest container handling facility in the Indian Ocean and can...
, his father was a Trinidadian sailor and his mother was a descendant of migrants from India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and Malaysia.
Early life
As Mauritian HistoryHistory
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
was made of various migratory waves, Torabully was soon immersed in Creole
Creole language
A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...
, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, and to a lesser degree, in Bhojpuri, Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
, Arabic and Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
languages. The cultural mosaic
Mosaic
Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
prevalent on the island accounts for his interest in diversity
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
and the discourse
Discourse
Discourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...
of identity
Identity (social science)
Identity is a term used to describe a person's conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliations . The term is used more specifically in psychology and sociology, and is given a great deal of attention in social psychology...
in History
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, as no nation
Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...
was existent in this country made of several communities. Torabully started writing poetry at a very early age, steadily explored the virtualities of the Encounter between cultures, histories and imaginaries.
Work
Khal Torabully left for LyonLyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
in 1976, to study at the University of Lyon II. Here he explored language with a need to reinterpret if profoundly, mixing exile
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
with a desire to reconcile peoples across borders, through a "coral imaginary." After studies in Comparative Literature
Comparative literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or national groups...
, Torabully wrote a PHD
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
thesis
Thesis
A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings...
in Semiology of Poetics
Poetics
Aristotle's Poetics is the earliest-surviving work of dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory...
with Michel Cusin. He was highly interested in T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
, Jacques Lacan
Jacques Lacan
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy, and has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's...
, Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
, Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, anthropology and...
and Julia Kristeva
Julia Kristeva
Julia Kristeva is a Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic, psychoanalyst, sociologist, feminist, and, most recently, novelist, who has lived in France since the mid-1960s. She is now a Professor at the University Paris Diderot...
, among others he met in his doctoral researches on intertextuality
Intertextuality
Intertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. It can include an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another. The term “intertextuality” has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since it was coined...
.
His poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
was to bear the imprint of those various theories, though it remained sensual, espousing the inner rhythms of the sea and the vision of meeting others akin to the "aesthetic shock" experimented by Victor Segalen
Victor Segalen
Victor Segalen was a French naval doctor, ethnographer, archeologist, writer, poet, explorer, art-theorist, linguist and literary critic....
. The poet framed many of his poetic texts with a distance from exotic views in which many encapsulated their experience of otherness
Alterity
Alterity is a philosophical term meaning "otherness", strictly being in the sense of the other of two . In the phenomenological tradition it is usually understood as the entity in contrast to which an identity is constructed, and it implies the ability to distinguish between self and not-self, and...
. In his early Fausse-île I and II, Torabully made a work of reinterpretation and started a quest for a poetic language mixing the music of various languages in an idiom imagined as "fossils of language".
His major work, Cale-d'étoiles-Coolitude gave new twists to the French language, subverting and enriching it with Indian
Languages of India
The languages of India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-European languages—Indo-Aryan and the Dravidian languages...
, Creole
Creole language
A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...
and Scandinavian
North Germanic languages
The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages, the languages of Scandinavians, make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages, along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages...
sources. He argued for the centrality of the seavoyage in the indentured migration, going against the taboo of the kala pani or dark seas. In so doing, the poet framed his transcultural
Transculturation
Transculturation is a term coined by Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz in 1940 to describe the phenomenon of merging and converging cultures....
vision in the concept of what he termed "coolitude."
Khal Torabully has won several literary awards, among which [Lettres-Frontière] (Switzerland), [Prix du Salon du Livre Insulaire] (France) and [Prix Missives] (France).
Coolitude
His poeticsPoetics
Aristotle's Poetics is the earliest-surviving work of dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory...
of coolitude was defined as the articulation of the imaginaries of mosaic
Mosaic
Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
India and other human and cultural spaces. Starting from the derogatory word "coolie", which he revitalized, Torabully extended it to geographical and cultural migrants throughout the world. His poetry voiced the need of relation between the descents of the emancipated slaves and the indentured, allowing interplay with other cultures, thus clearly constructed far from essentialism
Essentialism
In philosophy, essentialism is the view that, for any specific kind of entity, there is a set of characteristics or properties all of which any entity of that kind must possess. Therefore all things can be precisely defined or described...
or an exclusive "nostalgia of the origins".
Devised to fill a gap in postmodern and postcolonial theories, coolitude addresses anthropologists, aestheticians, historians, literary scholars and multicultural analysts to grasp the complexity
Complexity
In general usage, complexity tends to be used to characterize something with many parts in intricate arrangement. The study of these complex linkages is the main goal of complex systems theory. In science there are at this time a number of approaches to characterizing complexity, many of which are...
of inter and transcultural exchanges in the modern world. What he terms the "coral imaginary" is a metaphor to this vision of the world. Torabully proposes an exchange between cultures and imaginaries on an egalitarian basis, underlining the necessity of muffles histories to engage in shared narratives and a mosaic identity construction.
The poet of négritude
Négritude
Négritude is a literary and ideological movement, developed by francophone black intellectuals, writers, and politiciansin France in the 1930s by a group that included the future Senegalese President Léopold Sédar Senghor, Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, and the Guianan Léon Damas.The Négritude...
Aimé Césaire
Aimé Césaire
Aimé Fernand David Césaire was a French poet, author and politician from Martinique. He was "one of the founders of the négritude movement in Francophone literature".-Student, educator, and poet:...
acclaimed his work "as containing all his humanity". The Martinican writer Raphaël Confiant
Raphaël Confiant
Raphaël Confiant is a Martinican writer known for his literary commitment towards Creole literature.-Biography:Raphaël Confiant was born in 1951 in Le Lorrain, Martinique. He studied English and Political Science at the University of Aix-Marseille...
described his texts as having " a sovereign precision", and hailed Torabully as "the greatest poet of créolité
Créolité
Créolité is a literary movement first developed in the 1980s by Martinican writers Patrick Chamoiseau, Jean Bernabé and Raphaël Confiant. The trio published Eloge de la créolité in 1989 as a response to the perceived inadequacies of the négritude movement...
".
Torabully is the author of 15 poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
books and of an essay co-authored with Marina Carter and has won several awards in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
and Mauritius
Mauritius
Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...
.
Poetry
- Fausse-île I. Port-Louis: Babel, 1981.
- Fausse-île II. Lyon: Université Lumière (Lyon II), 1986.
- Appels d'archipels, ou le livre des miroirs. Port-Louis: Babel, 1987.
- Le Printemps des ombres (Azalées éditions, 1991)
- Petite Anthologie de la poésie mauricienne (Poésie-Rencontres, 1991)
- Cale d'étoiles-Coolitude (Azalées éditions, 1992), avec des toiles de S. H. Raza.
- Kot sa parol la? Rode parole (Le Printemps, 1995), poèmes en créole, traduction française.
- Du code au codex (Éditions Thierry Lambert, 1996)
- Palabre à parole, préface de Werner Lambersy, (Le Bruit des autres, 1996)
- Dialogue de l'eau et du sel (Le Bruit des autres, 1998) ISBN 2909468623
- L'Ombre rouge des gazelles (Paroles d'Aube, 1998)
- Chair corail: fragments coolies, préface de Raphaël Confiant, (Ibis rouge, 1999)
- Roulis sur le Malecon, carnet de voyage cubain (L'Harmattan, 1999) ISBN 2738481949
- Paroles entre une mère et son enfant fusillé (Les éditions du mont Popey, 2002)
- La cendre des mots: Après l'incendie de la bibliothèque de Bagdad, textes sur l'indicible (ouvrage collectif, L'Harmattan 2003) ISBN 2747553582
- Mes Afriques, mes ivoires, préface de Tanella Boni, (L'Harmattan, 2004) ISBN 2747564134
- Arbres et Anabase (Ibis rouge, 2005) ISBN 2844502717
Prose
- Coolitude: An Anthology of the Indian Labour Diaspora (with Marina Carter, Anthem Press, London, 2002) ISBN 1843310031
Dictionary
- Dictionnaire francophone de poche, LE POUVOIR DES MOTS SUR LE MOUVOIR DES PEAUX, La Passe du vent, Grigny, 2007.
FILMS
- Pic Pic, Nomade d’une île,1996.
- La traboule des vagues, multibroadcast Tele Lyon Metropole.
- Malcolm de Chazal, (52’), portrait of an artist, with France Telecom.
- Portraits de Mémoire en Gironde, France, 2010.
- The Maritime Memory of the Arabs, Oman TV, Chamarel Films, France 2001.
Awards:
-Best script, MFDC, for centenary of Cinema, 1996.
-Best Director Short Feature Film at Zanzibar International Film Festival, 1998.
-Best Producer London Videographer’s Guilds 97.
-Laureate of Beaumarchais Foundation (Paris), 2OOO.
-Golden Award 2010 for Arab Media and Television Professionals, best documentary film, International Festival of Cairo, for The Maritime Memory of the Arabs, presented by Oman TV.
External links
- Marina Carter and Khal Torabully, Coolitude: An Anthology of the Indian Labor Diaspora (2002), page from Anthem Press website
- Khaleel Torabully, "The coolies' odyssey", UNESCO Courier (October 1996)
- Khal Torabully, "Créolité, Coolitude, Créolisation: Les imaginaires de la relation", at Africultures website (2006)
- Véronique Bragard, Torabully biography, at the île en île website (CUNY)
- Véronique Bragard, "Voyages into Coolitude: A Comparative and Textual Analysis of Kala Pani Women's Cross-Cultural Creative Memory", thesis abstract
- Paget Henry, Review of Marina Carter and Khal Torabully, Coolitude: An Anthology of the Indian Labor Diaspora, from H-Net
- Commemoration of indentured, www.lexpress.mu
- The coral imaginary : www.halfvalue.com
- Coolitude : www.halfvalue.com
- Le pouvoir des mots sur le mouvoir des peaux, L'Express, - 32k -
- 10 Mai 2006/2007 : un engagement pour les mémoires, - 36k -
- Plaidoyer pour un itineraire de la memoire entre le Morne et le ghat, http://www.africultures.com/index.asp?menu=affiche_article&no=7957
- Pour un imaginaire indiaoceanique, propos sur le spectacle de Talipot http://www.theatretalipot.com/article/article.php?id=57
- Article sur Transoceanic echoes de Varonique Bragard, sur la coolitude, http://www.potomitan.info/torabully/transoceanic.php
- Mouvement indignés à Maurice : APRÈS LA MARCHE DES "15000 JEUNES POUR SAUVER ...
12 sept. 2011 ...
http://www.montraykreyol.org/spip.php?article4861