French Guiana (France) / All works
Novel
Le Nègre du gouverneur
Not translated into English
Serge Patient · 1972
Synopsis
In Guiana, under Governor Victor Hugues, D'Chimbo, known as Rongou, a black slave, is driven by an ambition that forces him into many compromises. Drawn to colonial society, which he both admires and rejects, and to a young white woman of good society, a kiss with whom sets tongues wagging, he becomes a sergeant in the guard created to fight the maroons, his insurgent brothers, torn between his origins and his ambition.
Context
Published in 1972 in Honfleur by Pierre Jean Oswald, in 86 pages, the chronicle was taken up in 1978 by L'Harmattan, then in 2001 by Ibis Rouge, with two collections of the author's poems, and in 2007 in paperback. It draws on a figure both real and legendary, a labourer of Gabonese origin who came to Guiana in the nineteenth century, whom the novel places in the time of Victor Hugues. Mylène Danglades, of the University of French Guiana, studied in 2020 its caricature of colonial society, of its racial prejudices and of the governor's power.
Who it is for
For reading a classic of Guianese literature, in which historical fresco mingles with fiction.
Prizes and reception
The book received the Carbet Prize of the Caribbean in 2001; at the author's death, Outremers360 called it emblematic and memorable.
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