Decolonizing Writing in Patrick Chamoiseau's L'empreinte à Crusoé (2012)

Abstract: This article proposes a reading of Patrick Chamoiseau's L'empreinte à Crusoé (2012) at the intersection of global racial studies and early modern studies. It assesses how Chamoiseau's rewriting of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719) proposes a form of decoloniality through narrative construction and literary aesthetics. The first part of this article examines how Chamoiseau positions slavery as the background to his story and how he challenges the positionality of Defoe's text. The second part revolves around a thorough analysis of the punctuation and expression of Chamoiseau's writing through the semicolon and the 'saisie narrative' to challenge literary practices and categorizations.