La Rue Cases-Nègres was first published in 1950, at a time when it was not yet fashionable to delve too deeply into the past of black people and their relationship with their white masters or even with their fellow blacks. True enough, by 1950 the landmark publications—in particular those of the negritude movement—had already made their appearance and their mark. Among them were René Maran’s Batouala in 1921, Aimé Césaire’s Cahier d’un Retour au Pays Natal in 1939 and Jacques Roumain’s Gouverneurs de la Rosée in 1944. Joseph Zobel, therefore, was not a true pioneer, but most certainly mastered the “tradition” of which he became so readily a part.
Like so many of the novels written by prominent black writers, La Rue Cases-Nègres, translated here as Black Shack Alley, is an autobiographical-type narrative. The initial tendency toward autobiography no doubt stemmed from the fact that the writers were without much literary tradition, hence the relative safety of the narrative centering on the personal adventures of the author. Zobel himself claims that his novel was inspired by Richard Wright’s Black Boy and that “everything in it is autobiographical, but the story was patterned after my own aesthetics of composition.”
Autobiography also means a genuine look at the milieu in which the author grew, at least if the author is faithful in his portrayals. Herein lies, however, the crux of an ever-recurring issue: where does fact end and fiction begin? After all, the novelist is not a historian in the true sense of the word, nor is he a sociologist. How then can one accept what he says about his society and milieu without the nagging feeling that it is severely, and quite understandably, biased? One is here reminded of Alex Haley’s Roots, which caused great controversy simply because some critics refused to see fiction as having a basis in fact, prompting Haley to refer to his work as one of “faction”—the very critics, one might add, who see nothing wrong in accepting Shakespeare’s doctored versions of historical fact.
By and large, black novelists, anglophone as well as francophone, have sought to use whatever they wrote to make certain statements, implicit or explicit, on the social milieu of their time or that of their work. Consequently, one finds large doses of social commentary alongside the straight narrative and the better novelists are those who marry these two elements with greatest effect. Zobel’s Black Shack Alley must rank him among these.
Black Shack Alley portrays the reality of life in the French West Indies in the years between the World Wars. It deals specifically with life on a Martinican plantation as well as with the struggles of the poor, black lower class in the ensuing shift to an urban setting in Fort-de-France. It is important to understand the role of the plantation in the colony, as Martinique then was. In his essay, “The French West Indies: Dualism from 1848 to the Present,” Professor Brian Weinstein has noted this role:
The plantations or habitations of these former colonies created racial classes and were the key to a permanently dependent economy. In spite of their humble origins, often as indentured laborers and soldiers of fortune, many whites became rich while the blacks were kept down as slaves. The poor whites allied themselves with the rich. All groups lived in and around the cane habitations, the products of which—sugar and, later, rum—had to be sent to France. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the habitation was an autonomous unit within the colony: the white owner lived surrounded by his black slaves who cultivated and cut the cane and transformed it on the spot into sugar and rum. A little land set aside for food crops supplied some of the needs of the population. Social life revolved around this unit. “The principal social groups were created within it, others on its periphery in symbiosis with it. Finally, there were those created in reaction to it, but no element in the complex tableau of this society appeared independent of it.”1
Not much of this had changed up to Zobel’s time and thus we find that the novel exposes, simply but forcibly, the problems confronting the poor blacks, the social milieu with which the author was most familiar and about which he felt he could write most effectively.
The novel is divided into three almost equal sections. Part I deals with the early life of the narrator, José, as he grows up on the plantation, and sees him through to the start of his primary school years. It is to the author’s credit that he has avoided the pitfall of allowing the adult that is writing to filter through to the narrative of the young child. As a result, José’s descriptions sound genuine and authentic, truly in keeping with the type a child would give and not at all inconsistent with the fact that beyond these it is the adult that is analyzing in retrospect.
It would, for example, be somewhat artificial to have the young José make certain telling comments on the state of the society—these are introduced gradually as José matures over the length of the novel—so these are put into the mouths of other characters. In this respect, Médouze’s account of his father’s troubles in the post-slavery period is typical. In fact, it is this account that brings out one of the rare impulses to violence that we see in José: “I had this maddening desire to hit the first béké I set my eyes on,” he concludes.
Part II shows José in primary school and takes us up to his preparation for and success in the examination that sends him to secondary school, the lycée. In order to take better care of him during this period, his grandmother, M’man Tine, eventually leaves Petit-Morne and Zobel uses this occasion to introduce us to a wide variety of pen portraits of the typical plantation society in Martinique prior to World War II. José once more looks on at the adult world with eyes of innocence, allowing events to make, in a way, their own commentary. However, we witness the gradual awakening of the young narrator to the complexities of class distinctions and other social inequalities, an awakening that comes full circle in Part III.
In this section, José is shown in the urban environment of Fort-de-France where he is reunited with his mother, Délia, as he works his way up to the baccalauréat. It is a new type of life that José and his companions see in this setting. Contemporary Fort-de-France is shown in its vivid realism, one that comes from an eye for significant detail which Zobel obviously possesses.
The reality as portrayed by Zobel comprises several facets. Among the more outstanding are the following:
The black/white relationship. The whites remain virtually unseen throughout the novel, though their invisible presence manifests itself from very early. The local white, the béké, owns all the plantations, of course, along with everything on them, and is kept in his position of superiority by the labor and merchandise therefrom. The workers are aware of the exploitation of the white masters but cannot do any better—witness the scene on payday when some of them grumble and remonstrate over the abysmally low wages.
José has very little first-hand contact with whites and is naturally conditioned by his grandmother’s opinion of them. In her way of thinking, the whites had come from France “where people had white skins and spoke something called ‘French’; a country . . . where all sorts of beautiful things were made.” Consequently, José is puzzled to see a white Christ on the cross; in his innocence he thought that treatment of such cruelty was only meted out to black people.
In Fort-de-France, José realizes that the blacks and whites are worlds apart. He sees whites only occasionally:
. . . one hardly ever saw the house-owners in Route Didier.
On mornings, at middays and on evenings I saw, in the back of luxury automobiles, a man with a pink complexion, comfortably installed. At times, it would be white women, dressed like hummingbirds. Or else it would be children looking like angels at Corpus Christi. Occasionally I would hear them (the women in particular) give orders to their servants in a stuck-up, pretentious voice and in an accent that—I knew not how—associated platitude to pedantry.
For all this, he cannot get over the difference in attitude toward them as shown by the blacks he has known—those from the country and those from Fort-de-France. The rural blacks “did not prostrate themselves” before the whites, “whereas those in Route Didier formed a devoted category, dutifully cultivating the manner of serving the békés.” The urban blacks, however, have other more practical reasons for their apparent submissiveness—antagonizing the whites could mean instant loss of job and home.
Of course the black-white dichotomy was not the only one. In a way, there are two others: white-mulatto and mulatto-black. With their fairer skins and less kinky hair, the mulattoes formed part of a buffer group, a sort of middle management. As José himself sees later on, the mulattoes are in a quandary, being neither one nor the other, resented by both blacks and whites:
When you think that those little bastard mulattoes, born of those unions, who don’t even have the right to call “papa” in public or to walk up to their béké fathers, grow up with the arrogance of not having a black skin, and never miss an opportunity to hark back to the white side of their origins.
In the final analysis, though, it is the mulattoes who have won out, as can be seen so plainly in many of the other West Indian islands, and this precisely because of the “middle” position they occupy.
Upward mobility. Whereas the whites control the economic structure of the society, the blacks’ only possible means of upward mobility is through education. Meaningful business enterprises were out of the question.
We see José striving to acquire for himself the basis of a sound education and what is more trying to pass this on to his buddies Carmen and Jojo as well. One is therefore not surprised to see him spend his vacation poring over all sorts of books. And even though he does at times wonder about the purpose and significance of what he is studying and the examination for which he is preparing, it is clear that a sound education marks the beginning of a new life, away from the slow death he saw consuming his grandmother, a life such as the returning Sorbonne graduate is about to pursue.
The sequel to this novel shows José on his way to France where he furthers his education, the natural result of his success at secondary school. Non-whites usually chose the “safe” professions—law, medicine, teaching, etc.—prior to returning to form part of a budding professional middle class. It is unfortunate that the note of optimism on which this aspect of the novel ends is cruelly belied by the realities of the contemporary situation in the French West Indies as well as many of the other islands as a whole. The very education to which the youth aspires still serves to no avail in the face of rampant unemployment and unemployability. In many instances, both educated and uneducated are either under- or unemployed.
The portrayal of the lower class. The group that receives the brunt of Zobel’s attention is the lowest on the social hierarchy. This is the group that works hardest but for the smallest gains. It is also the group that looks around for something to relate to in the society. Even Africa is a distant dream and not a reality except for the dances and other cultural vestiges that have survived. It is noticeable that the only time that the blacks are openly happy and carefree—for a while—is when they dance the laghia on weekends.
Apart from these times of festivity, there is little else to rejoice over. Life is a constant struggle for the adults and the only other respite is religion. Christianity provides the hope that things will eventually work themselves out, although if that fails there are always their African-oriented beliefs. These appear in the form of powerful superstitions but are nonetheless part and parcel of the everyday existence of the blacks.
One reality of life among the lower-class blacks that is highlighted in the novel is the power of the women in the absence of the father figure. In both crucial periods of José’s schooling he is without the guidance and protection of a father and consequently the women in his life assume very important roles. This fact makes the novel interestingly comparable to those that portray similar situations outside of the confines of the French West Indies.
The heavily matriarchal setting puts into sharp focus the two women that occupy the greater part of José’s existence.
M’man Tine, in her own simple way, does what she deems best for her ward. From her he receives his first appreciation of life on the plantation as well as the rudiments of good upbringing. It is she, too, who inculcates in him the urge for self-improvement and independence. She is shown as poor but proud, hardly socializing, except when absolutely necessary, and extremely particular about her humble shack.
Deep in her heart, she wishes she could do more for José whom she loves dearly and thinks of constantly. “M’man Tine would say,” the narrator tells us, “that she could not put anything whatsoever to her mouth without keeping some of it for me.” The floggings, therefore, stem not from the cruelty of a wicked grandmother, but rather from the loving guardian who in this way assures herself of success in the task of raising a well-behaved child. José’s drive to succeed must be seen as his desire to make M’man Tine happy. She is thus made into an omnipresent central character.
The important role played by her in José’s life is evidenced by the profound effect her death has on him, even though by then he has lived away from her for some time. It is most telling that he cannot picture her face—only her hands:
It was her hands that appeared to me on the whiteness of the sheet. Her black hands, swollen, hardened, cracked at every joint, and every crack encrusted with a sort of indelible mud. Cramped fingers, bent in all directions, their ends all worn and reinforced with nails thicker, harder and more shapeless than the hooves of God knows what animal that had galloped on rocks, in scrap iron, in a dung heap, in mud.
Délia is at first pictured as being at work in the béké’s houses in Fort-de-France, having precious little to care about, but she certainly rises to the occasion when it presents itself. It is through her stubbornness and self-sacrifice that José is able to continue at the lycée, despite his partial scholarship.
She takes over from M’man Tine and in many ways acts as an extension of her, only in an urban environment as opposed to the rural plantation one M’man Tine knew. She is determined that nothing will stop her son from receiving a secondary education, not even their bureaucratic machinery:
They are too wicked! It’s because we’re black, poor and alone in the world that they didn’t give you a full scholarship. They fully realize that I’m an unfortunate woman and that I couldn’t pay for you to go to the lycée. They know only too well that giving you a quarter scholarship is the same as not giving you anything at all. But they don’t know what a fighting woman I am. Well! I’m not giving up this quarter scholarship. You will go to their lycée!
That José makes it, then, is due in no small way to the efforts of his mother.
Zobel was once asked whether he considered himself “the novelist of negritude.” His reply was quite simply: “No, I’m a creative artist. I don’t feel that my negritude is a uniform or a function to which I must sacrifice my individuality.” The question was posed no doubt because of the controversial nature of the debate over negritude, some seeing in it a literary movement, some an ideology and others a philosophy. The interviewer wanted to find out whether Zobel considered himself among those francophone writers staking a claim for racial equality and identity, for cultural acceptance, for the rejection of Eurocentric bias, in short for all that was championed by Senghor, by Césaire, and by Damas in the thirties. Ever since the negritude debate, black francophone writers have been plagued with questions such as the one posed Zobel and his reply was well put.
This does not mean, however, that his novel is devoid of commitment, relevance and black consciousness. Yet, at no time does the reader get the impression that these elements are taking hold of the novel, that Zobel is using it as a cover for his set ideology. His comments fall naturally into place and it is only occasionally that we see outbursts such as:
. . . who was it who created for the cinema and the theater that type of black man, houseboy, driver, footman, truant, a pretext for words from simple minds, always rolling their white eyes in amazement, always with a silly irrepressible smile plastered on their faces, provoker of mockery? That black man with his grotesque behavior under the kick in the backside proudly administered by the white man, or when the latter had him hoodwinked with an ease that is explained by the theory of the “black man being a big child”?
There are further comments on the type of education being dished out in the former colony—an education obviously meant for metropolitan French students but unthinkingly dispensed to the colonials without any adjustments. Nevertheless, it seems that the very fact of writing the novel was sufficient commitment for the author. Indeed, what more eloquent statement on the working conditions on the plantations than the previously quoted passage describing M’man Tine’s hands? As is the case with so many of the better novels, what is not said speaks just as effectively as what is.
Inevitably, comparisons will be made with other novels of the same type. One of the more striking resemblances has to be with George Lamming’s In the Castle of My Skin, set in Barbados and published in 1953. Lamming’s novel is also about life in a village in colonial times, about poverty, about class and color and about growth and change in a West Indian society. It too has an appeal that is both contemporary and universal.
Another comparison can be made with Camara Laye’s L’Enfant Noir, also published in 1953. The genesis of both novels is remarkably similar—the author alone in France, having problems of readaptation and thinking of his homeland, of his childhood and his loved ones. Since Zobel also wrote his novel while working in France (the French edition carries the signature “Fontainebleau, 17 June 1950”), one can be tempted to ask the same question that some critics have asked with respect to Laye’s novel. Does Zobel tailor what he says to suit the tastes of the French among whom and possibly for whom he was writing? In all fairness to Zobel, it does not appear so. And, of course, the béké was a different breed altogether, with a different sociopolitical background, so that the metropolitan white could easily divorce himself from Zobel’s portrayals.
Zobel’s impact in this novel can best be summed up by referring to the old saying that we can best know where we are going once we know where we have been. Zobel helps us see more clearly where we have been. In this respect, the novel takes its place alongside many of the fine autobiographical works that have made their mark on the West Indian literary landscape.
When in 1974 Présence Africaine reissued La Rue Cases-Nègres, scholars were relieved at finally being able to have this classic readily available. Prior to that, there were only a few preciously-guarded original editions and a rather expensive reprint. Now that the situation with the original French text was improved, it was not long before it was painfully clear that those who did not read French were, from all reports, missing an important piece of West Indian writing. In particular, the need was felt for an acceptable translation into English.
Zobel himself, in a personal letter to the translator, echoed this feeling: “Must I tell you how happy I am over the publication of La Rue Cases-Nègres in English? It is not my ambition to see myself translated into dozens of languages, but I did find that the absence of an edition in English was a void that I’m grateful that you have filled at last.”
The problems involved in translating a work of this sort are, I presume, fairly well known. To quote a colleague: “Translation demands . . . over and above linguistic skill and literary talent, the actor’s ability to impersonate an author and interpret him to the new public.”2 First of all, the title. The choice was either a straight translation of the original, as in Sembène Ousmane’s Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu becoming God’s Bits of Wood, or another title altogether, as in Jean Giraudoux’s La Guerre de Troie n’Aura pas Lieu becoming Tiger at the Gates. We opted for the former. Then, to translate “Nègres” as “Negro” did not seem in keeping with current semantic trends, and “Shack” for “Cases” gave it a catchy ring with “Black.” “Alley” was chosen over “Trace.”
Secondly, Zobel’s narrative moved constantly from the historical present to the other usual past tenses. The historical present was excluded in an attempt to unify the style in English. Another liberty taken was the occasional toning down of the rather heavy use of the adverbs “puis” and “alors.” True enough, they indicated the narrator’s concern with keeping his storytelling in sequence, but all those “thens” grated somewhat in English. The problem, therefore, was to find an English style that reflected the West Indian context, the “French” atmosphere and the author’s concern for authentic dialogue.
Most French West Indians have another language besides standard French—créole. In fact, for many this is the only language. Créole is widespread precisely among the class of people with which Zobel deals. We see, for example, that one of the complaints made against José’s association with one of his companions is that the former was speaking créole with him. Ironically, this came from someone who spoke nothing else but créole, a good example of the duality within the society with respect to language.
It is to be understood, then, that much of the dialogue that Zobel put into standard French was in all probability uttered in créole, the most natural language for many of the types portrayed. The solution for the novelist writing for a wider reading public is to find a standard French, since not every reader will understand créole, that approximates créole in tone and rhythm. Hopefully, the resulting renditions in English will give some feel for the use of the nonstandard language.
Thirdly, a few words have been left in the original for effect and atmosphere. These are mainly names of trees, fruits, games and elements of French West Indian folklore, where even the “official” English term would have very little meaning for readers outside the restricted geographic confines of the novel. At any rate, many of the terms have a built-in explanation and a short glossary is provided.
Joseph Zobel was born in 1915 in the village of Petit-Bourg, Martinique. He attended secondary school at the Lycée Schoelcher in Fort-de-France and had intended becoming an interior decorator but was unable to do so as he could not get a scholarship to pursue his studies in France.
In 1937 he worked for a while as secretary/accountant in the Department of Bridges and Highways (Ponts et Chaussées) and the following year returned to his alma mater as supervisor. At about this time, he began to write and published some of his short stories in a local newspaper, Le Sportif. He wrote his first novel, Diab’là, in 1942. It is set in the fishing town of Le Diamant where Zobel had worked in 1937. However, the Vichy government, then in power in Martinique, forbade the release of the book. It was finally published in 1946.
When Martinique joined Free France during World War II, Zobel was appointed press attaché to the governor. Soon after the war in 1946 he published another novel, Les Jours Immobiles, as well as a collection of short stories, Laghia de la Mort ou Qui Fait Pleurer le Tamtam? Also in 1946, Zobel made the inevitable voyage—he went to France. He studied at the Institute of Ethnology and the Sorbonne and followed courses on dramatic art.
He taught at the Lycée François 1er in Fontainebleau and it was while there that he published La Rue Cases-Nègres in 1950. This work was to win that very year the Prix des Lecteurs, awarded by a jury of some one thousand readers. The sequel, La Fète à Paris, followed in 1953 and thereafter Zobel began a series of conferences and poetry readings. He took part in many radio plays and was instrumental in acquiring for poetry a greater share of radio time in France. He also traveled to Switzerland and Italy.
In 1957 Zobel followed in the footsteps of at least two other illustrious francophone West Indians—Félix Eboué and René Maran. He went to Africa, choosing to work in Senegal. At first, he assisted in setting up the Lycée de Ziguinchor, then in 1958 went to the Lycée Van Vollenhoven in Dakar where he developed literature and elocution courses. He was then chosen to reorganize the Ecole des Arts de Dakar in 1961, moving the following year to Radio Sénégal as cultural adviser. In this capacity he founded and headed the station’s Cultural Services and was in charge of the training of announcers.
Another collection of short stories, Le Soleil Partagé, was published in 1964, followed in 1965 by a collection of poems, Incantation pour un Retour au Pays Natal.
After many years in Africa, Zobel retired and returned to France in 1976 but sees his stay there as only a preparation for his permanent return to Senegal. He claims that he had even made all preparations to return to Martinique at the end of his administrative stint in Senegal, but “twenty years among the Senegalese do not allow me to withstand any other transplantation.”
In 1978, a rewritten Laghia de là Mort was reissued by Présence Africaine and Les Mains Pleines d’Oiseaux, actually a reworking of his previous Les Jours Immobiles, was published by Nouvelles Editions Latines. Two other novels and a collection of short stories are in press.
Zobel has also released a record: Joseph Zobel Dit Trois Poèmes de Joseph Zobel.
KEITH Q. WARNER
JUNE 1979
UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES
ST. AUGUSTINE, TRINIDAD & TOBAGO
NOTES
1. In Martin Kilson & Robert Robert. The African Diaspora. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976. The quotation at the end is from Jean Benoist, “Types de plantation et groupes sociaux à la Martinique,” Cahiers des Amériques Latines, 2 (1968), p. 139.
2. Brenda Packman, “Some Problems of Translation in African Literature,” in C. Heywood. Perspectives on African Literature. London: Heinemann, 1971, p. 65.
3. I am indebted to Raymond Relouzat’s short study of La Rue Cases-Nègres (Martinique, no date) for much of this information. Some was also supplied by Zobel in personal correspondence. For further reading, see Randolph Hezekiah, “Joseph Zobel: The Mechanics of Liberation,” Black Images, Vol. 4, Nos. 3 and 4 (1975), pp. 44–55.