Between Two Worlds

Simone Schwarz-Bart's Between Two Worlds, translated from the French original, Ti-Jean L'horizon, by Barbara Bray is an enchanting magical realist tale about slavery and identity in Guadeloupe, the author's homeland. While clearly specific to Guadeloupe and its rural communities, this postcolonial tale incorporates elements of pan-Caribbean culture and history (slavery, the zombi, a quote from Jacques Roumain, and a return to Africa) to tell the tale of Ti Jean, a young man from Fond Zombi who must return the Sun and save his community, which falls into reenslavement as eternal darkness reigns over the world. Along the way, Ti Jean experiences love, friendship, travels to Africa, France, and the Kingdom of Shades, and is forced to accept himself for what he is and take root in Guadeloupe. 

Although multilayered and at times a bit confusing (the numerous chapters where Ti Jean travels to Africa, for instance, and the dense mythological allusions and history can be hard to follow at times), Ti Jean's tale emphasizes the importance of Guadeloupe and its people's right to live free and with pride. The protagonist's grandfather, the 'Immortal One' who represents the maroons of the days of slavery, and the world of the descendants of slaves who meekly accept their condition, must learn to take pride in their land and free themselves of colonial thinking. Yet, the author does not fall entirely into negritude thought, since Ti Jean's return to Africa is not accepted by Wademba's people, thereby making the people of the Caribbean a branch of the African tree which must find roots in Guadeloupe. 

The text is full of local colors, supernatural events, travels across oceans and rivers, and last, but certainly not least, fully-fleshed symbolism and heroic archetypes. Ti Jean, compared to the Sun multiple times, ultimately frees it (metaphorically freeing the people of Guadeloupe from slavery and white domination) from the Beast (a cow with a pelican nesting in its ear), reminding one of Haitian literary giant Jacques Stephen Alexis, who also wrote of the Sun as an ally of the poor. In addition to ties with that tradition, the text quotes Jacques Roumain's Masters of the Dew in the final section, thereby linking itself with broader trends and a tradition of peasant novel and anti-colonial significance in the French Caribbean world. Needless to say, I could rant without end about the book, its cyclical message, the passionate critique of colonialism, and the numerous worlds the protagonist lives between, but I'll end here. Those eager to read of a fictionalized but highly integrated worlds of death, Africa before colonialism, and 20th century Guadeloupe should be highly interested in this novel. 

Favorite Quotes

"To tell the truth, it is a completely unimportant scrap of earth, and the experts have once and for all dismissed its history as insignificant."

"Moreover, it has a long history, full of wonders, bloodshed, and frustrations, and of desires no less vast than those that filled the skies of Nineveh, Babylon, or Jerusalem."

"Nor did they ask themselves whether Guadeloupe was of any importance in the world, they knew, they knew that rare happenings and unparalleled glories had been seen in the wretched forest they now haunted, and that these deeds had been the exploits of their ancestors."

"Instead of bringing everyone together under one shelter, darkness seemed to have stolen in between the living bodies, making them look just like dim shapes to one another, bereft of their weight of flesh and blood and old alliance."

"And our hero's heart was moved, moved by the living these familiar images as if the two worlds had held out their hands to each other, century after century."

"Being alive and dead at the same time, he belonged to both worlds yet was to both a stranger, as incongruous and out of place on earth as if he had fallen down from a star."