A post by Peter Jordens.

The novel Faire l’aventure by storywriter, journalist and filmmaker Fabienne Kanor was the Jury’s choice at the 25^th edition of the Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe et du Tout-Monde, which this year took place at the Casa de las Americas in Cuba.

The jury, which was chaired by Ernest Pépin (Guadeloupe) and included Nancy Morejon (Cuba), Rodolphe Alexandre (French Guiana), Miguel Duplan (Martinique, Guyana), Lise Gauvin (Québec), Romuald Fonkoua (Cameroon), Evelyne Trouillot (Haiti), Michael Dash (Trinidad), Patrick Chamoiseau (Martinique) and Samia Kassab-Charfi (Tunisia), also recognized as Special Mentions: Louis Sala-Molins (France) for Esclavage réparation – Les lumières des capucins et les lueurs des pharisiens (Éditions Lignes) and Yannick Lahens (Haiti) for Bain de lune (Sabine Wespieser).

Kanor (France, 1970), born of French Antillean parents, has written a novel that combines alterity, emigration, exile, Africa and Europe, the Antilles … through the journey of two migrants. According to critics, the book “addresses individual identity by way of an intimate and human adventure.” These themes are common too in her work as a filmmaker.

“As writers, we open doors. We do not always know where we are going; but ultimately, we try to tell a story, we allow people, who may never have spoken before, to speak. As writers, we are obliged to feel the emotions and restore them. And as a novelist, it has been important for me to rediscover my territories and inhabit them,” said the author. “In my books,” she continues, “most of my characters are black. That means that they share African, Caribbean or African-American stories. I feel that I am part of that common ground, that blackness which I carry as a political color.”

Kanor’s works include D’Eaux douce (2004), Humus (2006), Les chiens ne font pas des chats (2008) and Anticorps (2010). Faire l’aventure was published by 2014 by Éditions J.C. Lattès.

Since its creation in 1990, the Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe et du Tout-Monde recognizes annually a Creole or French literary work from any corner of the world that is characterized by a decolonizing vision and promotes intercultural connections. The award is announced at the end of a cultural week of meetings, lectures, debates, films, concerts and exhibitions. For the first time in its history the Prix Carbet was held in a Spanish-speaking island, which is in accordance with the intention expressed by Édouard Glissant in 2008 to “organize a literary meeting of the Prix in the English- and Spanish-speaking Caribbean, but also in Africa.”

For the original article (in Spanish) go to http://laventana.casa.cult.cu/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8445. Also see http://www.prensa-latina.cu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3380301.