He knew that translation would be difficult, but Coverdale convinced him to go ahead. And then there are endnotes to disentangle the most obscure references.Ĭarl Bromley, editorial director at The New Press, says he was “utterly spellbound” when Anne-Solange Noble of Chamoiseau’s French publisher Gallimard first told him about the novel in Frankfurt a few years ago. Other words, like “flap,” meaning “suddenly,” are clear from their context (I jumped up flap, and fled at top speed). Often, she leaves the Creole phrases in italics, followed by English approximations (“yen-yen midges,” “ouélélé tumult,” etc.). The translator, Linda Coverdale, has done a great job of making the references intelligible to English-speaking readers while conveying the stylistic complexity of the original. In Slave Old Man, an additional layer of complexity is added: the translation of this unique voice into English.

Chamoiseau is known for championing the literary possibilities of the Creole language, in which French is infused with new vocabulary and grammar both from the Caribbean and from the many African languages spoken by those brought there as slaves. It’s worth reading this novel simply to see the ways in which language can be made loose and supple, shaped by capable hands into new, unusual forms. Like Kafka, he creates a world in which the absurd and the grotesque seem real, in which dreams and nightmares coalesce. Like Joyce, Chamoiseau reconfigures language to suit his own purposes, seamlessly melding the literary with the colloquial. But as you work your way through this novel about an old man escaping a slave plantation on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, you begin to understand what Kundera meant. When you read in the blurb that Milan Kundera described the author as the “heir of Joyce and Kafka,” you could be forgiven a little eye-rolling. But Slave Old Man by Patrick Chamoiseau is a rare exception.

Let’s face it: The literary world is full of hyperbolic comparisons, most of which don’t bear too much scrutiny.

In “Why this linguistic masterpiece on slavery should be your next read,” Andrew Blackman ( Ozy) reviews Patrick Chamoiseau’s Slave Old Man, the translation of L’Esclave vieil homme et le molosse (Gallimard, 1997) by Linda Coverdale.

Slave old man by patrick chamoiseau