Poetry
Fables de La Fontaine traduites en créole seychellois
Not translated into English
Rodolphine Young · 1900
Synopsis
Forty-nine fables of La Fontaine adapted in verse into the old Creole of Seychelles, preceded by a prologue in which the narrator addresses her readers. The crow, the fox, the cicada, the ant and the others come from the fabulist, but their gestures, attitudes and feelings are Seychellois. The morals reflect the paternalistic and repressive society of the archipelago at the beginning of the century, and the author's spelling notes the pronunciation of this old Creole.
Context
The manuscript notebook was found in the early eighties and published in Hamburg in 1983 by Annegret Bollée and Guy Lionnet, with notes and a study of the language, in the original spelling; Creolica has issued an electronic reissue. The fables date from at least the beginning of the twentieth century, and their old Creole informs linguists about the evolution of the language over nearly a century.
Who it is for
Short fables in old Creole; the 1983 edition and its electronic reissue accompany them with notes.
Prizes and reception
Its publishers see in it a literary achievement as much as a document on the history of the language.