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Alain Gordon-Gentil Novelist
<B> Last week, you attended the “Inter-regional festival of the Novel” in Reunion Island. Tell us a bit more about the themes that were explored.</B>
Well, the main theme was “Creolisation and the use of regional French in novel-writing”. Michèle Rakotoson of Madagascar, Nassur Attoumani of Mayotte, Mohamed Toihiri of the Comoros, Jean-Joseph Madeleine of Reunion, Mariella Ringhini of France and I debated the theme in the regional council. What’s interesting is that novelists from the Seychelles write only in Creole, those from Reunion in Creole and French, those from Madagascar in Malagasy and finally French and Mauritian novelists write in English and French. It shows that the Indian Ocean islands are linked by French. We also participated in writing workshops with students from the University of Reunion.
<B> Does language influence the styles and themes of the novels?</B>
Yes, definitely. A language is not only about words, it conveys lifestyles and cultures too.
<B> Does our bilingualism dilute our ability to excel in a particular language?</B>
Definitely. It reminds me of a phrase my father used: “A bilingual man is a man who speaks two languages badly.”
<B> Is the potential for English novel-writing under-exploited in Mauritius?</B>
Mauritius should definitely encourage English novels. The big thing for French novelists is to get their works translated into English because the anglophone market is five times as big as the francophone one.
What should be done to encourage English creative writing?</B>
To write proficiently in a language, one has to be constantly exposed to it. When Mauritius was a British colony, we were obviously very exposed to the language but it was lost after independence. Over the past few years, however, the English language seems to have become more and more popular in Mauritius. This will bear fruit in maybe ten years from now. I must say though, that the British don’t seem very interested in disseminating their language, not as much as the French, anyway. It reminds me of a British High Commissioner’s remark. He said that, contrarily to the French, who have a minister for Francophonie, the British don’t need a minister to promote their language.
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