<B>Emmanuel Richon</B>

When I first arrived in Mauritius in 1979, I was charmed by the island?s laid-back atmosphere: meeting all these people still wearing elephant pants, still listening to the Beatles when the real trend for it had faded a long time ago in Europe. It was as if my childhood years had been granted a new lifespan? Then I went back to France and there I met my future wife, a Mauritian. She had been cut off from her country for a few years. So, when we decided to move back to Mauritius in 1997, we both had the impressionof having missed some of the most extensive chapters of Mauritian history. It was no longer question of my eternal rock and roll years! After all these years, I realized that, yes, Mauritius was perhaps not that paradise that would last forever.

But I was also keen to meet the wondrous diversity of this new country. In my Parisian youth, I met so different people. My grandfather was from Martinique and familiar with great writers like Saint-John Perse. But I realized how much he was Creole when I found one day Henri Salvador chatting with him at his place. At that time, singing Salvador?s hits was something common for teenagers like me. But not meeting him at grandpa?s!

My father was in the aviation industry, a well-travelled man who founded, for example, the Dakar-Mecca line. He was much into the politics of the time and he would indistinctly welcome caddies (spiritual leaders) from Tombouctou as much as prominent figures. In truth, it was such a mix that overall Africa was a familiar feature at home.

So I had no special problem in addressing Mauritius complex realities. Not everything is perfect here, but so is it in France too. I would have been happier yet if I saw a cultural scene where those who seemingly are in the limelight were more prone to accept other talents. Artists don?t seem to be satisfied if they are not the ?only one?. It seems that this is particularly inscribed in insularity here, though I am not sure I found the same reflexes in Martinique?

Yet I like the island very much and some unique traits of local culture. What you call here «lakorité» is a notion that nobody would find elsewhere. Different to harmony, which is natural, even distinct from any kind of social pact, «lakorité» is this bond, accord, built at base level, between neighbours, unaware of any form of communalism, unreachable I hope from any kind of mischievous calculation. ?Don?t care, we are there: you are more than family.? This is Mauritius too.