Between essays, poetry and short stories, Desêtre and other fragments is a collection of literary texts proposed by the 2023 class of the writing workshop sponsored by the French Institute of Mauritius. Written under the attentive and generous eye of the novelist and journalist Shenaz Patel, these texts testify to a real impetus for literature and a taste for writing among the young generation of Mauritians.
Their names are Cédric, Dhanistha, Romain, Léo, Mathilde, Enzo, Izza, Sunny, Chole and Yann. A motley group of eleven girls and boys, between 16 and 19 years old. They are the authors of the twenty-two texts which make up the collection Désêtre and other fragmentsborn from the work of the 2023 class of the writing workshop that the French Institute of Mauritius has been organizing for two years.
The texts included in the collection bear witness to the often dramatic experiences of the authors, their fertile imaginations and the literary ambitions of this Mauritian youth like no other, in love with writing. “ It’s a youth who is deeply curious about books and what literature can bring them. », declares the novelist and journalist Shenaz Patel who animated, after Barlen Pyamootoo in 2022, the last edition of the workshop known as the Bureau of Young Readers-Authors of Mauritius. “ We started in February, continues Patel, and it was a big surprise for me because there are young people on the team who do not come from backgrounds traditionally associated with reading and writing. Some of these young people discovered writing and literature barely two years ago, during confinement. I find it absolutely magical to see these young people, who suddenly discover literature and who discover how essential it is in fact to them in their lives. We met every Saturday morning at the French Institute in Rose-Hill and there, I saw some of these young people who live on the other end of the island travel four hours by bus every Saturday to be there at 9 a.m. to talk literature, to talk writing. »
“You have to live to write”
Eleven young people out of the 17 girls and boys initially registered completed the adventure. This weekly writing workshop was, according to the facilitator, a real experience of living together, punctuated by outings to the cinema, the theater and sometimes to exhibitions. “I never stopped telling these young people that they had to live to write “, says Shenaz Patel. The other sentence that the eleven of Rose-Hill regularly heard from the mouth of their host who became a friend: “ We are what we read… “. As a result, they read a lot: Mauritians, French, Americans. A variety of works, the classics, but not only that, as the host explains.
“I first started by offering them readings, a lot of contemporary literature in fact, because I wanted them to see that literature is not something fixed, it is something that is deeply alive, like them. In literature, what has always fascinated me is this double movement which allows on the one hand to go very deeply inside oneself, because sometimes, we experience things and we cannot to formulate them. And then we read a book. And suddenly, there is a very strong echo in what we read. We tell ourselves that we are not alone because the author managed to put words to things that I feel and that I cannot express. And then, there is the other movement which is outwards, which allows us to meet people whom we will perhaps never meet in real life. When I write, I am God because I can create people who I wish I had met and who I probably won’t meet in real life. If these people bother me, I can kill them. If after a while I miss them, I can resurrect them. So many things we can’t do in real life. »
It is undoubtedly because the participants in the Office of Young Readers-Authors wanted to play God in turn that the idea of an end-of-workshop publication was born, with the names of the authors on the cover. The title of their publication Desêtre comes from a poem proposed by one of the participants, a poem which said “ I would like to “disbe” to break my chains and no longer suffer “. “ I found this poem very beautiful, very poignant. As an author, I wish I had invented that… “, confides Shenaz Patel.
“Writing is sharing a secret”
Desêtre has two texts, under the signature of each of the participants: an invented, imagined, sometimes realistic story, plus a text close to the essay genre in which the authors give free rein to their reflections and intuitions on writing. There is everything, twenty-two texts between fantastic stories, short stories and self-writing revealing fragilities, vulnerabilities… “ The challenge was to make people understandremembers Shenaz Patel, that writing is not throwing up your guts. » Eight months of debates, crises, moving moments, and shared literature followed. In short, “fascinating work”, if we believe the host.
The passion of the participants in the Rose Hill workshop can be seen in the pages of the collection, particularly in those which evoke the relationships that these fledgling authors have with literature and writing. “ They often say very personal things about their relationship with writing, emphasizes Shenaz Patel. She cites Léo Espègle, 18, in support: “ When I write, I remove my heart from my body, I place it delicately on the table and, equipped with my pen, I mutilate it, I stab it and put it back with a hole in my chest. » « Writing tames me. Its incredible power connects my emotions and soothes them. These words, these sentences, these texts present themselves to me like a gold mine or a grenade ready to explode », exclaims for her part Mathilde Valéry. For Cédric Léopold“ writing is a child who seeks to break down the walls of time and letting out a loud cry or a long whisper that travels through every corner of the being, acting like a terrible burn, but comforting at the same time. »
The host also quotes Romain David who answers the question “why do you write?” » : « We write to free ourselves from such a great weight. So heavy/ We write to jump in the air and bring out this joy of life that we have, this joy that we want to share./ We write so as not to be alone, we create characters to accompany us, to understand us , give us strength and move forward. / We write so as not to do the irreparable and get to the other side./ We write like a shared secret. »
The extracts cited here are so many doors that open onto inner worlds, rich in promises and secrets. They are above all emblematic of the tone of this Mauritian anthology. A raw tone, sometimes lyrical, above all promising new dawns.
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Desêtre and other fragments, by the collective of the Office of young readers-authors of the 2023 class of the French Institute of Mauritius accompanied by Shenaz Patel. 188 pages, price not indicated.