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Patrick Chamoiseau Et Le Gwo-Ka Du Chanté-Parlé , Pim Higginson

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Numerous critics have explored the use of orality in Patrick Chamoiseau's work. Solibo Magnificent adds to the opposition between the oral and the written the third term of the musical. Western artistic expression maintains a neat border between the media (e.g. literature, music, the plastic arts) because it helps legitimate the essentialization of (racial, ethnic, sexual) alterity: white maleness writes; the musical is instead associated with otherness (and orality). This hinged or articulated connection between alterity and the musical (and sameness and the literary) assures and assumes that the musical does not signify. This essay contends that Chamoiseau's novel responds …