On Slavery, Césaire, and Relating to the World: An Interview with Patrick Chamoiseau

In an interview which took place in the Maison Française, Oxford, on 10 May 2008, the day instituted by the Chirac government to commemorate the crime of slavery, Patrick Chamoiseau discusses his attempts to raise consciousness of slavery among young Antilleans. He reflects on his relationship with a number of Caribbean writers, including Edouard Glissant, Derek Walcott and the recently-deceased Aimé Césaire. Working out of a number of familiar theoretical concepts (‘créolité’, ‘relation’), he articulates his vision of ‘mondialité’, a global dynamic according to which the peoples of the world are in constant connectedness to each other, capitalism being only the crudest example of this reality. Finally Chamoiseau queries the extent to which the term ‘postcolonial’ can be a useful one for formerly colonised peoples, given the risk that it might sanctify or give undue prominence to the colonial experience.