Placoly, Vincent (1946-92). Martinican novelist and dramatist. He was educated in Fort-de-France, and then at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and the Sorbonne, where he was a member of the Jeunesses Communistes and president of the Association Générale des Étudiants Martiniquais. His first novel, La Vie et la mort de Marcel Gonstran (1971), is a searching study of the effects of colonialism on an individual, while his second, L'Eau-de-mort guildive (1973), ranges over the whole of contemporary Martinican society; both novels are written in a style that owes much to Rimbaud, Faulkner, and the contemporary Latin American novel, and combine a recondite vocabulary with the patterns and rhythms of Creole. A third novel, Frères volcans (1983), is written in a more documentary style and explores the emancipation of slaves in Martinique in 1848 from the point of view of a white slave-holder. Placoly's plays include La Mort douloureuse et tragique d'André Aliker (1969), Dessalines, ou la Passion de l'indépendance (1983), which was awarded the Premio Casa de las Americas by the Centre for Cultural Studies in Havana, and a reworking, in a French West Indian context, of the legend of Don Juan. Shortly before his death, Placoly was awarded the Prix Frantz Fanon for a collection of stories and essays entitled Une journée torride (1991). A founder-member of the far-left Groupe Révolution Socialiste in 1974, Placoly was an active supporter of independence for Martinique.
[Rita Christian]
