![]() It’s worth reading this novel simply to see the ways in which language can be made loose and supple, shaped by capable hands into new, unusual forms. Like Kafka, he creates a world in which the absurd and the grotesque seem real, in which dreams and nightmares coalesce. ![]() ![]() Like Joyce, Chamoiseau reconfigures language to suit his own purposes, seamlessly melding the literary with the colloquial. But as you work your way through this novel about an old man escaping a slave plantation on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, you begin to understand what Kundera meant. When you read in the blurb that Milan Kundera described the author as the “heir of Joyce and Kafka,” you could be forgiven a little eye-rolling. But Slave Old Man by Patrick Chamoiseau is a rare exception. Let’s face it: The literary world is full of hyperbolic comparisons, most of which don’t bear too much scrutiny. In “Why this linguistic masterpiece on slavery should be your next read,” Andrew Blackman ( Ozy) reviews Patrick Chamoiseau’s Slave Old Man, the translation of L’Esclave vieil homme et le molosse (Gallimard, 1997) by Linda Coverdale. ![]()
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