Ecriture de l'histoire et révolution de l'imaginaire dans Biblique des derniers gestes de Patrick Chamoiseau

In view of the issues raised in the colloquium, it would seem that an analysis of Patrick Chamoiseau's Biblique des derniers gestes (published in 2002) would enlighten our discussions. This original work attempts to assess the accomplishments of the twentieth century by using an innovative point of view, on the basis of the anti-colonialist struggles for independence in developing countries, called The Third World (Tiers-Monde). The novelist created The Old Rebel, an emblematic character who is both an insignificant and magnificent figure who personifies the point of view of the overpowered colonized people. Chamoiseau, however, goes beyond these historical defeats and invents a utopia in which female characters play the role of go-between who symbolizes the ideal conceptualized by Edouard Glissant's Poetics of Relation. Chamoiseau intends to revolutionize the collective imagination, sine qua non condition "to sow memory with fiction". In doing so, Chamoiseau explores all literary and gathers the great books in World Literature; he thereby creates what Milan Kundera called an "archi-roman". Biblique des derniers gestes is, indeed, Chamoiseau's hyper-novel.