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The Power To (Dis)Please: Supernatural Horror And History In Célanire Cou-Coupé, Livi Yoshioka-Maxwell
The Power To (Dis)Please: Supernatural Horror And History In Célanire Cou-Coupé, Livi Yoshioka-Maxwell
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
In this essay, I read Maryse Condé’s Célanire cou-coupé (Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat?) as a work of supernatural horror fiction in order to participate in Condé’s reflections on the complexities of interpreting histories of violence. In response to Chris Bongie’s call to re-evaluate Condé’s engagement with popular literature, I contend that popular literacies can be just as useful as more arcane cultural knowledge for interpreting this and other novels by Condé. Previous studies of Condé’s use of popular devices in Célanire cou-coupé approached the novel as an example of the Todorovian fantastique. In positing the eponymous Célanire …