 1991 Gallimard 'Folio' edition | |
| Author | J. M. G. Le Clézio |
|---|---|
| Translator | Alison Anderson |
| Language | French translated into English |
| Subject | Colonialism |
| Genre | Coming of Age |
| Publisher | Gallimard (France) University of Nebraska Press |
Publication date | 1991 (French), 1997 (English) |
| Media type | Print (Paperback and Hardcover) |
| Pages | 206 pp |
Onitsha is a novel by French Nobel laureate writer J. M. G. Le Clézio. It was originally published in French in 1991 and an English translation was released in 1997.
Onitsha tells the story of Fintan, a young European boy who travels from Bordeaux to the port of Marseilles to sail along the coast of Africa to the mouth of the Niger River to Onitsha in colonial Nigeria with his Italian mother (nicknamed Maou) in the year 1948. Warren Motte wrote a review in World Literature Today to note that, like many of Le Clézio's writings Onitsha is a novel of apprenticeship. He mentions that the very first words of the novel inscribe the theme of the journey and announce that it will occupy the foreground of the tale and he quotes a passage from Onitsha to exemplify Fintan's reluctance to embark upon that journey
Le Surabaya, un navire de cinq mille trois cents tonneaux, deja vieux, de la Holland Africa Line, venait de quitter les eaux sales de l'estuaire de la Gironde et faisait route vers la cote ouest de l'Afrique, et Fintan regardait sa mere comme si c'etait pour la premiere fois. The Holland Africa Line had this vessel (which was already an old vessel) weighing three hundred tons named Le Surabaya which had just left the dirty waters of the Gironde estuary and was bound for the west coast of Africa. Fintan watched and saw his own mother as if it were the first time he ever saw her.
It was a long journey as Le Clézio wrote:
The days were so long. Perhaps it was the summertime light, or the horizon, so far away, with nothing to hold one's gaze. It was like waiting, hour after hour, until you no longer knew what you were waiting for
They were intending to meet Geoffroy Allen (Fintan's English father an oil company executive who is obsessed with uncovering the area's ancient history by tracking down myths and legends) whom Fintan has never met.
Onitsha depicts childhood, because it is written semi-autobiographically, [2] but seen through the eyes of Fintan and to lesser extent his father, and his mother, who is not able to fit in with the colonial society of the town of Onitsha with its casual acceptance of 'native' slave labour. [3] Le Clézio wrote:
When he turned ten, Fintan decided he would call his mother only by her nickname. Her name was Maria Luisa, but she was called Maou; Fintan, as a baby, could not pronounce her name, and so it had stuck. He had taken his mother by the hand, looked straight into her eyes, and decided: "From today on I shall call you Maou." He looked so serious that she stood speechless for a moment, then she burst out laughing, a mad laughter that occasionally took hold of her, irresistibly. Fintan had laughed, too, and that had sealed their agreement.
[4] [5] Eventually, Fintan's father loses his job with the United Africa Company and moves the family first to London, then to the south of France. [6] Sabine Rhodes, another British National, already a miscast in the colony recognises the inevitable
The days are numbered for all of us, all of us! The empire is finished, signorita, it's crumbling on every side, turning to dust; the great ship of empire is sinking. But I shan't leave. I shall stay here to see it all, that's my mission, my vocation, to watch the ship go under
[7] The novel ends on a note of rebellion against the white rulers and points towards the coming of the neocolonialism of conglomerates which would finally begin another form of economic exploitation of a country rich in oil. [8]
The book is a critique on racism and the vestiges of colonialism as seen from the youthful perspective of the main character
Throughout the book, Fintan's rejection of colonialism is symbolized by the attacks of his mother Maou, who increasingly speaks out against the way the colonials treat the indigenous people. The book seemingly mimics Le Clézio's own life, especially when the character travels back to Africa in an attempt to fill in the sense of loss he had suffered, to renew it in his mind, a task that ends in a dead end. [9]
Alison Anderson is the author of Darwin's Wink and the translator of seventeen books, including The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery. Anderson wrote about how it was for her to have translated Onitsha for the fall 1997 edition of World Literature Today [10]
Onitsha was, as I may have already implied by now, a translator's dream. The language is fluid and evocative, not too difficult, clear and classical. This may seem obvious to readers of the original, but if I just cite some other examples of literature I have translated or looked at, I realize just how fortunate I have been to translate Le Clezio. I have done excerpts from Sylvie Germain's work, and it is extremely difficult – challenging, no doubt, but often near-impossible, leading to a kind of rapturous frustration for the translator, because the language is so baroque and rich, so very idiomatically French as well, that if one is not careful it quickly becomes unpalatable to the English reader. Either the poetry is lost, or one must betray the original: I found myself walking a real tightrope in working with her text.
Alison Anderson published her own synopsis of Onitsha [11]
"Onitsha" is remarkable for its "almost mythological evocation of local history and beliefs." It is full of atmosphere – sights, sounds, smells – and at times the author's sentences seem to flow with the dreamy languor of the river itself. But J. M. G. Le Clezio "never lets us forget the harsh realities of life nor the subsequent tragedy of war." A startling account – and indictment – of colonialism, "Onitsha" is also a work of clear, forthright prose that ably portrays both colonial Nigeria and a young boy's growing outrage
A "Google Book search" accesses the contents of the book as well as giving a list of places mentioned in the book and also accesses the reader to an excerpt of the English version of Onitsha (chapter one "A long Voyage"). Onitsha By Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (Alison Anderson) at Google Books
Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, usually identified as J. M. G. Le Clézio, of French and Mauritian nationality, is a writer and professor. The author of over forty works, he was awarded the 1963 Prix Renaudot for his novel Le Procès-Verbal and the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature for his life's work, as an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization".
"The African" is a short autobiographical essay written by French Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio.
Le Procès-Verbal is the debut novel of French Nobel laureate writer J. M. G. Le Clézio, about a troubled man named Adam Pollo who "struggles to contextualize what he sees" and "to negotiate often disturbing ideas while simultaneously navigating through, for him, life’s absurdity and emptiness".
The Mexican Dream, Or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations is an English translation of an essay written in French by J. M. G. Le Clézio first published in 1988.
La fièvre is the title of a set of short stories written in French by French Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio and translated into English by Daphne Woodward as Fever and published by Atheneum in the US and Hamish Hamilton in the UK.
Le Déluge is an early fictional work about trouble and fear in major Western cities by Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio.
Désert is a 1980 novel written by French Nobel laureate writer J. M. G. Le Clézio, considered to be one of his breakthrough novels. It won the Académie française's Grand Prix Paul Morand in 1980.
Terra Amata is an early fictional novel by French Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio.
This is a list of works by J. M. G. Le Clézio, the French Nobel Laureate.
Dans la maison d'Edith is an essay written by French Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio. It was written in French and has not been translated into English, however the title translates as In Edith's House.
'L'Extase matérielle' is an essay written by French Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio. The book's title means Material Ecstasy in English. This essay may be advising that we should pay the utmost attention to what there is around us, not to what there might be or ought to be. According to a review of 'L'Extase matérielle' the reasoning behind the essay is to accept that "what there is is all there is"(and to demand more is ludicrous)
Ballaciner is an essay by French Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio with help from Gilles Jacob. It was originally published in French in 2003.
On reading as true travel is an essay written in French by the French Nobel laureate, J. M. G. Le Clézio.
La Ronde et autres faits divers (1982) is the title of a set of short stories written in French by French Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio and translated into English as The Round & Other Cold Hard Facts.
Le Chercheur d'or is a novel written in French by French Nobel laureate writer J. M. G. Le Clézio and translated into English as The prospector by Carol Marks and published by David R. Godine, Boston.
Wandering Star is a novel by French Nobel laureate writer J. M. G. Le Clézio. The novel tells the story of two teenage girls on the threshold and in the aftermath of World War II. Esther, a French Jew who flees for Jerusalem with her mother just after Italy's occupation of a small section of south-east France ended during World War II; and Nejma, a young Arab orphaned and unable to return to the ancient city of her birth, Akka, after the Israeli declaration of statehood. Esther emigrates to the newborn state of Israel, where she encounters another group of refugees, this time Palestinian.
Ritournelle de la faim is a novel written in French by French Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio.
Mondo et autres histoires is a 1978 short story collection by French author J. M. G. Le Clézio. The stories in this collection all concern adolescents who in one way or another leave their familiar (civilized) circumstances and have numinous experiences accompanied by a rite of passage or other initiation.
Printemps et autres saisons is the title of a collection of short stories written in French by French Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio.
The 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, better known with his pen name J. M. G. Le Clézio, as an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization." He became the 14th French-language author to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature after Claude Simon in 1985 and was followed later by Patrick Modiano in 2014.
The emphasis in Le Clézio's work has increasingly moved in the direction of an exploration of the world of childhood and of his own family history. This development began with Onitsha (1991; Onitsha, 1997)
This excerpt from Onitsha was selected by Lars Rydquist , head librarian, Nobel Library of the Swedish Academy which awarded Le Clézio the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2008."Video of the Event(Prose)Le Clézio". Nobel Web AB 2009. 2008-12-07. Retrieved 2009-01-19.
2008 Nobel Laureate in Literature Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio reads an excerpt from his book "Onitsha". The video was recorded in Stockholm .
Le Clézio's excerpt from Onitsha can also be read in the original French
Though it uses European cultural referents, Onitsha is an evocative and realistic depiction of imperialism in West Africa.
ONITSHA.... is a semiautobiographical novel about an Italian boy’s journey to Africa, where his British father works. At first delighted by the local culture and beautiful surroundings, he comes to understand the cruelty and racism of the colonial society
