La traversée du Kala pani chez Ananda Devi : entre espace-temps tragique et renaissance symbolique
The Crossing of the Kala pani in Ananda Devi: Between Tragic Space-Time and Symbolic Rebirth

Summary/Abstract: References to the notion of karma abound in the works of Ananda Devi, a major female figure in the literary Francophonie of the Indian Ocean. These references evoke a tragic fate in connection with the idea of exile for the Indian community installed in Mauritius through the crossing of the Great Ocean. However, this crossing of “dark waters” (Kala pani) is a taboo, a curse in Hinduism. Installed in the island area of Mauritius, the Indo-descendants presented by Devi’s works experience a sort of eternal return from this original curse, the community feeling chastened by a feeling of uprooting, which constantly recalls the indestructible link with the mother country the ancestral culture. Based on two novels from the so-called Hindu cycle of Ananda Devi, and drawing on the work of Mircea Eliade (2009) on mythical symbols and structures, this study aims at showing that death is a figure of reincarnation in a new life. The analysis thus leads to understand that the Kala pani is a tragic space-time, at the same time, that it is a space-time of purifying immersion and of symbolic rebirth in the imaginary of the exiles that the novelist stages.

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