Rudy Rabathaly (Martinique), journalist and former editor-in-chief of France Antilles, will be signing his new novel Kokliko (Caraïbéditions, 2025) at Cultura Californie (bookstore) in Lamentin, Martinique, on Saturday, March 29, at 10:00am.

Description: Kokliko (hibiscus flower in Creole) is the nickname of the child, the young girl, the woman who inhabits this novel, which unfolds like a musical score in counterpoint. Between fairytale and coming-of-age story, the characters invite us to spin in the dancing circles of Caribbean poetry. Blurring the boundaries between the literary and everyday language, between the precious and the popular, the author and his spoken word overwhelm us with the linguistic power of Creole imagination.

Overwhelmed by a sudden love at first sight, Kokliko witnesses the birth of a rivalry with her lifelong passion: books. Her avid sensuality, mingling and embodying the flesh of the words she cherishes more than anything, will sharpen her excitement to the point of driving her to hunt down the page of the mystery of her Haitian lineage, which she has hidden for so long.

In a back-and-forth between places and times, the author reverses the cliché of woman-as-object of desire to create a desiring subject, an actor in her obsessive quest for lost affection.

Kokliko is an oral-tradition novel in which the golden words of the languages ​​of the Francophone Caribbean spring forth in abundance.

Other books by Rudy Rabathaly are:

• Pawol anba fey, Ed. Jasor 2012
• Tonbé love (Caraïbeditions 2017
• Oliwon d’imaginaire créole, K. Editions 2024

Description translated by Ivette Romero. For original text, see https://www.madinin-art.net/kokliko-roman-de-rudy-rabathaly/