An arresting, musical ode to the forgotten voyages and resilient identities of indentured peoples.
Cargo Hold of Stars gives voice to the millions of indentured men and women, mostly from India and China, who were brought to Mauritius between 1849 and 1923. Kept in close quarters in the ship’s cargo hold, many died; most never returned home. Here, Khal Torabully introduces the concept of “Coolitude,” echoing Aimé Césaire’s “Negritude” to imbue the term with profound dignity, pride, and a resilient cultural identity. Stating that ordinary language could not capture these diverse voices, Torabully develops a new “poetics of Coolitude”: a French peppered with Mauritian Creole, brilliant wordplay, and neologisms.
The humor in these linguistic acrobatics only underscores the violence in which these poems are steeped. Deftly translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson, Cargo Hold of Stars is the song of an uprooting, destruction, and reconstruction. Yet it also celebrates setting down roots, conjuring an ideal homeland of fraternity and reconciliation in which bodies, memories, and languages mingle—a compelling odyssey defining the essence of humankind.
