"The Restless" by Gerty Dambury
This book, I believe, is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand Guadeloupe. I read it in 2017 and I still keep recommending it to anyone because it talks about an event that was so traumatizing that the generation who lived it didn’t talk about it for years. I believe the great strike of 2009 brought back many memories that this generation could no longer keep to themselves. I’m so ashamed and angry at myself for not being aware until 2017 of how big and hurtful this moment was in Guadeloupe’s history. I hope the next generations will know early what we weren’t taught.
Short summary
Three days of revolt. Three days of blood. Three days of terror. Three days in which Pointe-à-Pitre was the scene of the power struggles that have shaken Guadeloupe since its “discovery” five centuries earlier (#tmtc). The year is 1967. 10-year-old Émilienne is trying to understand what is happening in the adult world. At school, her teacher has disappeared. At home, her father too. The reader lives to the rhythm of the anxiety, concerns but also questions of this child. Why ? Why ? The ghosts that watch over Emilienne provide the necessary explanations according to the quadrille they dance. Young, old, worker, entrepreneur, student, teacher, child, parent ... this fresco of Guadeloupe society recalls the diverse yet fragile balance between these different dynamics inherited from a heavy past.
A literature choreography
Published in 2012, “The Restless” (t/n : Les Rétifs) is Gerty Dambury's first novel. With her usual playwriting and poetic style, the story turns into an intense show where Death lurks around. The interludes with the ghosts allow smooth changes of point of view along the rhythms of the quadrille dance. If you know me, you know I hate constant changes of points of view within a story, but what each character said was so thrilling that I felt like I was always keeping the big picture in mind. Exactly as if they were on stage in front of me. The structure has the clarity of a script as past and present intertwine in the urgency of the moment. In short, it is an easy to read novel. With timeless themes and a rich gallery of characters.
Literature as a source of transmission/legacy
In 2017, the MLA organized a cycle of events in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Mé 67 (t/n: the Kreyol way to say May 67’). I attended the May 6th session where Gerty Dambury was invited to present this novel. Due to a technical issue, the documentary Sonjé Mé 67 [t/n: Remember May 67’] could not be broadcast and the discussion therefore revolved around the author's personal memories. She tolds us that decades had passed before she discussed this episode in detail with her family. Like many Guadeloupeans of her generation, Mé 67 is remembered but rarely if ever mentioned thereafter. It always comes back to the issue of transmission.
For the current generation of people in their 50’s who made history in the second half of the 20th century, everything seems obvious. They lived, shared these moments. Nothing needs to be explained ... Especially when there are questions with unknown answers, when there are misunderstandings that persist over time. The two generations that follow, including mine, therefore find themselves faced with a puzzle-like past to be reconstructed in order to understand what happened. I asked Gerty Dambury about her opinion on the fact that the majority of young people aged 30 and under do not know or know little about the recent history of Guadeloupe. She had admitted that she was unable to give a specific factor except that there was perhaps a lack of interest in the transmission initiatives offered to the general public. I think there is some truth to it, but I also believe that the silence of parents and grandparents on this aspect of our identity is another explanation. How to talk about painful moments? When to talk about these painful moments? This is why transmission is so difficult.
Art remains the most popular way to intrigue, arouse interest and make people question themselves. Without falling into activism or a form of radicalism, “The Restless” offers a realistic fiction with intense gentleness without ever seeking to conceal or turn away from the true violence of these events.
My final words
If I had read “The Restless” in 2012/2013, I probably wouldn't have been receptive because I wasn't in the mood to welcome it into my mind and into my heart. The “antilleanity” that shines through in every scene, every word would have been unbearable to me ... Or maybe it would have helped me in my process of reconciliation to my Caribbean identity. We'll never know. In any case, in 2017, I was ready. This novel is one of those that will accompany me in my life and that I will enjoy rereading. I’m sure I’ll find something different each time that will make me wonder about the person I am and the person I want to be.
Just as “Caraïbe-On-The-Seine-River” [t/n : first known as “A Butterfly in the projects” by Gisèle Pineau] and “Sugar Cane Alley” [t/n: La Rue Case-nègres by Joseph Zobel] were essential in school readings for West Indian children in the 90s, I hope that “The Restless” will also be listed in schools syllabi in the years to come.
PS : for a recent audiovisual narration of Mé 67, you can watch the excellent documentary by Mike Horn shot in 2017 and broadcast on France Ô at the beginning of 2018: “May 67, don't shoot the children of the Republic”.
T/n: you may read the French version of my review here.