Glissantian Dis/Engagements and Dis/Entanglements: Maryse Condé’s and Patrick Chamoiseau’s Narratives of Af/Filiation

At the center of Maryse Condé’s novel, The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana, is the close, tempestuous relationship that the brother-sister twins, Ivan and Ivana, share. As filial others, their af/filiation engenders unpredictability and lack of transparency. At the heart of Patrick Chamoiseau’s novel, Slave Old Man, is a chase of the eponymous fugitive slave old man; despite his perceived detachment, his close af/filiation with fellow slaves is unmistakable. Condé and Chamoiseau’s characters’ perceived predictability challenges readers to accept the impossibility of complete knowing and predictability. Employing Édouard Glissant’s theoretical conceptualizations of opacité and filiation, Condé’s and Chamoiseau’s characters carve a niche, an expanse, to practice and engage personal and community relations.