Narrative
Ja, ik ben een Marron
Not translated into English
Julian With · 1974
Synopsis
This novella follows young Maroons who have come to live in Paramaribo and are trying to make their way towards education and progress. In the capital, they come up against the contempt that city-dwellers feel for people from the interior. The book draws from this a thesis that it defends without detour: there can be no solidarity in the country as long as one part of the Black population discriminates against the other.
Context
The book was published in Suriname when its author was barely twenty, a year before he left the country. In it he set out the theme that would govern all his work: the exclusion of the Maroons, kept at a distance by their own compatriots. He returned to it in 1979 in an essay that judged unacceptable this discrimination by city dwellers born in Paramaribo, then in 1986 in a resounding book on racism. At his death, the tributes published in Suriname recalled that this first book announced his struggle.
Who it is for
For those who want to understand the place given to the Maroons in Suriname in the seventies, seen by one of their own.
Prizes and reception
The first book of a feared critic, it is cited in every portrait of the author as the opening of his campaign.