Deep sea writing: recent conversations with Lindsey Collen, writer and activist from Mauritius

ABSTRACT

Oceans have occupied our imagination since time immemorial, both in symbolic and in practical ways. The Indian Ocean is a region characterized both by complex economic, historical, cultural, and social entanglements. Memories of recent and distant pasts plumb oceanic depths, needing to be carefully recollected and sieved to make sense of the present, and imagine possibilities for the future. The ocean is thus read as a site of contested struggles, a space where historical identities and stories interconnect. Storytelling is one device through which personal and collective memories can resurface and be questioned, as can be observed in the work of South African-born Mauritian writer and activist Lindsey Collen. This essay discusses Collen’s outlook on the Indian Ocean region, and on Mauritian literature and socio-political landscape. Building on previous work and research on Collen as a major activist and literary figure in Mauritius, this paper is based on a series of interviews and conversations with Collen and the two authors.

KEYWORDS:

• Lindsey Collen
• Mauritius
• Indian Ocean writing

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Lindsey Collen for her engagement with them in the form of both email correspondence and in-person conversations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Rachel Matteau Matsha is a senior lecturer in the Department of Media, Language and Communication at the Durban University of Technology. Her research interests include literary studies, with a focus on the sociology of literature, book history, urban studies, post-colonial studies, and Indian Ocean studies.

Lindy Stiebel is professor Emeritus of English Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Her research interests are linked by a deep interest in the relationship between writers and place and include South African literature with a special focus on Lewis Nkosi, Indian Ocean studies, and literary tourism. She is the author of a number of books, the most recent of which is Writing home: Lewis Nkosi on South African literature (with Michael Chapman, 2016).

ORCID

Rachel Matteau Matsha http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3927-8168

Notes

1 For further research on Lindsey Collen see Arnold, M. La littérature mauricienne contemporaine: un espace de creation postcolonial entre revendications identitaires et ouvertures culturelles (2017); Matteau Matsha, R. ‘Surfing the Tide: Cross-cultural Indian Ocean Identities in the Work of Lindsey Collen (2015); Githire, N. Cannibal Writes: Eating Others in Caribbean and Indian Ocean Writing (2014); Bragard, V & Ravi, S. Ecriture mauriciennes au féminin: penser l’altérité (2011); Williams-Wanquet, E. ‘Anti-novels as Ethics: Lindsey Collen’s The rape of Sita’ (2005/2006); Thomas, S. ‘Memory politics in the narratives of Lindsey Collen’s The rape of Sita’ (1997), to mention a few.