Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature
Abstract
This article studies in what forms the magical-religious dimension is expressed in the fiction works of the Schwarz-Bart couple in order to assess the function given by the authors to the manifestations of the “divine” therein. The frontier between belief and miscreancy is particularly flexible in each of the novels – whether written jointly or separately – by André and / or Simone Schwarz-Bart. Indeed, co-signed or not, the identity quest cannot be dissociated from the religious one: a quest of the meaning of suffering, of a balm that remedies the agonies and compensates for the traumas endured by two hard-hit communities. Descendants of “those who survived” (according to Glissant’s formula for the black diaspora), the characters of the Caribbean cycle resemble the Jewish characters of The Last of the Justs and The Morning Star: faithful of faithless, they all question the reason of racism, of persecution, and of exclusion by a dominant society.
Recommended Citation
Gyssels, Kathleen
(2012)
"Le marranisme absolu dans l’oeuvre d’André et de Simone Schwarz-Bart,"
Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature: Vol. 79:
No.
1, Article 7.
Available at:
https://crossworks.holycross.edu/pf/vol79/iss1/7
Included in
Caribbean Languages and Societies Commons, French and Francophone Language and Literature Commons, Jewish Studies Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons