Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Oppression1Françoise Lionnet (bio)In her disquietingly incandescent poetic novella, La vie de Josephin le fou, completed with the energy of urgency in just two weeks in November 2002,2 Mauritian author Ananda Devi explores Joséphin's relationship with the protective aquatic environment that becomes his refuge from domestic abuse and maternal rejection:J'ai pris l'habitude d'aller dans la mer chaque fois que le monde d'en haut criait trop fort. La mer m'a accueilli chaque fois sans poser de questions, elle avait pas de voix, la mer, que des sons transparents et mouillés, des sons qui vous bercent et vous endorment et vous cicatrisent et vous guérissent….(20)Going into the ocean became a habit every time the world up above would scream too loud. The ocean welcomed me every time, without asking any questions--the ocean had no voice, only sounds, transparent and soaked, sounds that could rock you to sleep and heal your wounds…..(27)The French-language narrative plays with the homonyms mer (sea/ocean) and mère (mother) to underline the nurturing maternal qualities of the deep, which it contrasts with the behavior of the abused and abusive human mother. Caught in a vortex of violence on land where he must always hold his breath and his tongue, Joséphin has developed the ability to survive without much air. This learned ability to restrict his breathing has prepared him for life under water:J'avais pas besoin de respirer. J'avais tellement retenu ma respiration depuis bébé pour pas la mettre en colère… que c'était facile de le faire de nouveau pour rester longtemps longtemps sous l'eau. Vivre là, en captant quelques bulles d'air échappées des coquilles.(22)I didn't need to breathe. I had held my breath for so long as a baby to not make her mad…. that it was easy to do it again, to stay a long long time under water, to live there, off of a few air bubbles escaped from sea shells.(28)In a story that takes on the generic characteristics of the fantastic, Devi thematizes the relationship between social or familial oppression and the physiological constriction of lungs due to oxygen deficiency. Joséphin's (self-)denial of air speaks to us today, eloquently, of an urgent issue that became prominent in the past two years: choking as a form of torture inflicted upon victims of police brutality. The oft repeated slogan, "I can't breathe," militant words of the international Black Lives Matter movement, [End Page 169] have become a rallying cry against oppression. "I can't breathe" is recognizable everywhere as a sign of outrage against gratuitous human cruelty, and in 2020, George Floyd became its most famous contemporary symbol, after Eric Garner's death in a choke hold first drew attention to the issue. Journalist Lonnae O'Neal has discussed Floyd's fate, his tragic last moments, his call to his absent, deceased mother. O'Neal dwells on the words he uttered as he lay in the street: "Momma! Momma! I am through." In her elegy to black motherhood, O'Neal asserts that a dying man's call to his mother "is a prayer to be seen," "a sacred invocation" that expresses the poignant hope that memory and justice will prevail. She invokes Floyd's need to be recognized as a human being, to testify to his humanity with his last breaths, and thus to be remembered as having mattered. Her lyrical prose contains direct echoes of Martinican poet Aimé Césaire's poem "Le cri" in which the narrator forces recognition of his humanity by leaving traces of his "souffle," his breath, in the invisible presence-absence of air:Le vent novice de la mémoire des méandress'offenseÀ vif que par mon soufflede mon souffle il suffisepour à tous signifierprésents et avenirqu'un homme était làet qu'il a crié[…]The wind, inexpert at remembering meandersis stungto the quick that my breathmy breath alone sufficesto signify to allnow and foreverthat a man was...