Stephen Gray
Malagasy writer Michle Rakotoson visited South Africa for the Time of the Writer Festival in Durban. She has written plays for her own theatre troupe, a novel and Dadab et Autres Nouvelles (1984), a collection of autobiographical and erotic pieces.
You were representing Malagasy literature at the festival in Durban.
Yes, and I told them that we have two literatures in the great red island. One is in Malgache, which came from Indonesia in the 11th century; the other is in French in colonial days we had poets, like the very great Jean-Joseph Rabarivelo, who were formative in the broader African literature. I also said that though of course we are part of Africa, we are also a bit apart from Africa.
Critics of the Indian Ocean region consider you the key figure in the renewal of those literatures.
Well, if so, it is because I write in both languages, depending on the practical situation. Back home my reputation rests on theatre pieces of when I was younger and before our socialist revolution, when I was very militant in the extreme Left, and addressed social issues that had not been dealt with previously. But in France, insofar as I am known, it is for the novels.
How did you feel in Durban, opposite your home, but so off-limits during the apartheid period?
A childhood dream come true I used to predict it would be violets and tea! Firstly I was fascinated to see that the white culture of Runion and of Mauritius continues there, and cannot be neglected a type that Margeurite Duras described so well. Then immediately I picked up that there is a common black and Indian culture, thanks to all that unwritten history of slavery and trade, that does stretch across the Mozambique Channel, despite any political barriers. Coastal people know one another.
Do you resent being labelled “woman”, “black”, “Third World”, rather than plain writer?
At first I used to carry those torches willingly, rap on the table for attention at conferences and get-togethers. Now that I am better established, I’m more a writer who is a woman than the other way round.
We met through the post when you contributed your Dolorosa to The Picador Book of African Stories I was then editing.
Dolorosa I wrote because of a period of intense private mourning; at one time I found friends of mine were suddenly dying of Aids and I had to make an outcry at the way I noticed they were treated so differently from people who were dying in the normal way. It has since taken on a life of its own as a ballet, a theatre piece, and now in your collection worldwide in English too.
In France I work for my profession for Radio France Internationale, so I know those short forms for voices. Dolorosa is just one African woman’s lament for how inhumanly Aids sufferers are treated. I mentioned that in Durban as well.