Margaret Papillon: La bande des quatre à la croisée des mondes

What is it about?

A prolific author, Margaret Papillon deploys, in her novels for adults as well as for young people, multiple processes of appropriation and transformation of genres, resulting in a hybrid poetics that tends to erase the boundaries between popular literature and «literate» literature postulated by the discourse of criticism. This article examines some of these processes in Papillons’ two series of children’s novels published since 1999. In particular, it appears that these novels retain many basic conventions of children’s literature while adapting them to the Haitian context. The plot and theme of the six novels under study are indeed based on Haitian history and culture. The reader can thus follow the young adventurers crossing Caribbean time and space where there is no shortage of magic, princesses, treasures, pirates, parrots and mischievous little monkeys. However, there are also romantic encounters and a discourse of social criticism denouncing injustice, abuse of power, corruption and lack of respect for nature and human life. Through numerous intertextual, historical and anthropological references, Papillon’s novels thus create an original cross-cultural imagination capable of entertaining and instructing both Haitian and international audiences.

Featured Image