In Madagascar, “La nage du porter de feu” is the title of the latest work by the Malagasy poet and novelist Hery Mahavanona. This writer with multiple lives, a retired general from the air force and former director of airports in Madagascar, is currently presenting this collection of short stories in Antananarivo, at the French Institute. Thirteen short stories that allow a trip to the landlocked country of the Tanala, a forest people in the south-east of Madagascar and the author’s native land.
With our correspondent in Antananarivo, Laetitia Bezain
” Me, I’m just a firebringer », writes Hery Mahavanona in the epigraph of the eponymous novel. A text that transports the reader to 1947. In this region, Tanala, one of the starting points of the Malagasy insurrection against the French colonists, the narrator must transmit a message to the rebels at all costs, on the other side of the River. Hery Mahavanona explains:
For us, the fire carrier swim is a swim that consists of raising one arm and never getting it wet while crossing the river, because in principle, one must carry a fire brand that one should not drop in water. So, it’s a bit of a metaphor to talk about all we have to do despite all the difficulties.
A journey to the heart of the protective forest and into the daily life of the Tanala, isolated from the rest of the island.
It is a people who have a well-established traditional organization but currently, there are flaws in this organization. The young are beginning to challenge the old. Old people also let themselves go a little. The news is related to all this. I am not passing judgment, but making an observation. It is a region a little neglected and behind the others in terms of roads, communications, telecommunications, health. Everything is still to be done. So I think I have a role to play beyond writing poems or short stories. When we talk about Ikongo [district du sud-est NDLR] unfortunately lately, it’s been rather bad and even before, we never talked about Ikongo. We are so landlocked that we live on ourselves and for me, this is an opportunity to highlight this country.
A region that Hery Mahavanona celebrates, constantly rediscovers and makes known through the eyes of the writer, that of the child of the country, but also with the eye of the soldier.
The swim of the firebringer, Hery Mahavanona, Dodo Vole editions.