Patrick Chamoiseau

Chamoiseau, Patrick (1953– ), Martinican novelist, playwright, and essayist. Born in Martinique and living in France, he has written extensively the language and history of creole culture. In his novels (Chronique des sept misères (Chronicle of Seven Miseries, 1986); Solibo magnifique (Magnificent Solibo, 1988); Texaco, 1992, among others), he frequently employs characters and motifs from Caribbean folklore. Chamoiseau's Au temps de l'antan: contes du pays martinique (Creole Folktales, 1988) features versions of well‐known fairy tales, such as ‘Bluebeard’ in ‘Une affaire de mariage’ (‘A Little Matter of Marriage’), while highlighting the remarkable wit and irony of the storyteller.

— Lewis C. Seifert

Chamoiseau, Patrick (b. 1953). Martinican novelist, playwright, and theoretician, whose particular interests are the sociopolitical and literary status of French Creole, and the affirmation of Martinican cultural identity. These issues, earlier raised by Glissant, are debated in Éloge de la créolité (1989), jointly authored by Chamoiseau, R. Confiant, and Jean Bernabé, and in Lettres créoles (1991) coauthored with Confiant. They are also variously illustrated in Chamoiseau's autobiographical Antan d'enfance (1990) and his novels Chronique des sept misères (1986), Solibo magnifique (1988), and Texaco (1992, Prix Goncourt). He employs many features associated with the Creole folk-tale—wit, zest, irony, audience participation, and a sometimes brutal realism—in order to convey his humane and subtly subversive view of Caribbean social history.

[Beverley Ormerod]