Longlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize!

Cargo Hold of Stars: Coolitude by Khal Torabully, translated from the French by Nancy Naomi Carlson

The Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize is for book-length literary translations into English from any living European language. It aims to honour the craft of translation and to recognise its cultural importance.

With Cargo Hold of Stars, Torabully introduces the concept of ‘Coolitude’ in a way that echoes Aimé Césaire’s term ‘Negritude,’ imbuing the term with dignity and pride, as well as a strong and resilient cultural identity and language. Stating that ordinary language was not equipped to bring to life the diverse voices of indenture, Torabully has developed a ‘poetics of Coolitude’: a new French, peppered with Mauritian Creole, wordplay, and neologisms—and always musical. The humor in these linguistic acrobatics serves to underscore the violence in which his poems are steeped.

Deftly translated from the French by Nancy Naomi Carlson, Cargo Hold of Stars is the song of an uprooting, of the destruction and the reconstruction of the indentured laborer’s identity. But it also celebrates setting down roots, as it conjures an ideal homeland of fraternity and reconciliation in which bodies, memories, stories, and languages mingle—a compelling odyssey that ultimately defines the essence of humankind.

‘Coolitude is a term he [Torabully] coined to reclaim the dated pejorative “coolie,” which was used to refer to unskilled indentured workers in Mauritius. Cargo Hold of Stars dives into “coolie” reality, their journey and identity, while emphasizing their shared experience . . . [The book] is a love song to the voyage of the indentured workers . . . While heavy with themes of exile and trauma, the poems are buoyed by a spiritual richness and a linguistic playfulness . . . Khal Torabully’s visual, musical, and linguistic virtuosity comes through in Nancy Naomi Carlson’s wonderful translation. The flow and weave between languages and neologisms is rendered with dexterity and ease, and with true aesthetic force. Even those unfamiliar with the cultural heritage of Mauritius will not only enjoy the collection but will feel expanded by it.’—Andrea Jurjević, Los Angeles Review of Books.

Khal himself has discussed the book and events in his life leading up to it in an article published in Le Mauricien of 9 May 2022. Some excerpts from his article are reproduced below:

‘Cale d’étoiles-coolitude, a work written in 1989, inspired by Mauritius as the nerve centre of the coolie trade, was published in 1992, in Reunion island, by Christian Vittori. At that time, the book was welcomed both as a liberating and improbable work, challenging the erased voices of the indentured workers or coolies and pioneering new studies on indenture. This later led me to theorize indentureship in a transdisciplinary way, leading to the anthology COOLITUDE (Anthem, 2002), co-written with the historian Marina Carter. And with her again, to the e-anthology COOLITUDE II launched last year at the Ameena Gafoor Institute (UK). Since then, I have collaborated with UNESCO and the Aapravasi Ghat and continued my work of reflection, theorization and creation to this day. The adventure continues even more, as this poetological work led to the foundation of writing History from the ocean. Then, it developed the slavery-indentureship methodology, archipelagic indenture and diasporic approaches that have gained momentum in mainstream. As did inclusive indentureship, pan indenturism, kala pani aesthetics and the complex thinking of post indenture unfolding in academia and beyond.’