Born in South Africa, Lindsey Collen has lived in Mauritius since 1974 and has been a controversial figure there for her espousal of women’s rights. Though her novel, The Rape of Sita (1994), won the prestigious Commonwealth Writer’s Prize, it was banned in Mauritius where Muslim pressure groups objected to its forceful feminism.
Getting Rid of It (1997) was no less provocative, dealing as it does with the disposal of a foetus and the empowerment of women. And now with her new novel, Mutiny, Collen examines the themes of justice and repression, again with the emphasis on female vulnerability in a male-dominated society.
The first-person narrator, Juna, is in prison as an “allegator”. This is not, as one at first assumes, for making subversive political allegations, but rather for allegations made about her. What these are remains vague and unspecified for the reader, as indeed for the prisoner herself.
This not knowing about her own position (nor the fate of her twin brother, Jay, who is in another prison), undermines Juna’s sense of reality. At least, as her young cell mate Leila remarks, “I did something”.
To relieve the tedium of their empty days the women relate their personal stories and we gradually learn about Juna’s background as a highly qualified and gifted “electronic creations” expert whose services have been sold by one firm to another for an enormous fee.
When Mama Gracienne is literally hurled into the cell and turns out to have a message for Juna, she is thrust — unwillingly at first — into a scheme hatched by her union leaders. The plot gathers momentum in time with the cyclone that is building up outside the prison. In fact, two cyclones are converging in what promises to be a mammoth storm, which also serves as an effective metaphor for mounting political unrest.
Excellent at both character delineation and description, Collen skilfully conveys us into the oppressive world of prisoners and warders. In a marvellous scene when Juna is being escorted to prison, she sees a female guard — or what she calls “a blue lady” — close up for the first time. The realisation that jailer and jailed are equally dehumanised strikes her vividly: “She just goes on looking straight ahead of her. Her make-up holding her in place. Like a corpse.”
What emerges as the action progresses is a picture of a repressive and brutal bureaucracy filled with Kafkaesque menace. When Juna is arrested, for example, though she is not physically assaulted, she is surrounded by “a troop of plainclothes men … Big men. Some already standing there like orangutangs.”
Her colleague, Boni, on the other hand, is horribly beaten (“mutilation intentionally inflicted”) despite the fact that, as she tells Juna, “the police suspect me, but they don’t know what of”.
This powerful novel is permeated by obscure threats that, along with the gathering storm, create an atmosphere of tension and suspense. Collen gives us a glimpse of Mauritian life never hinted at in glossy travel brochures, but the dark world she conjures up is pierced by the light of hope and belief in the strength of the human spirit.