Tidalectic Memories of the Black Atlantic

Monénembo’s approaches to a past that is not past in Pelourinho and Les Coqs cubains chantent à minuit

Abstract

This article demonstrates how Tierno Monénembo’s literary poetics set memory in motion across the Atlantic. Pelourinho and Les Coqs cubains chantent à minuit were published by Monénembo in 1995 and 2015 respectively, the former set in Brazil and the latter in Cuba. He pursues his literary project to ‘humaniser l’histoire’ in these two novels, via a roots-tourism entry point to revisiting the persistent traces of transatlantic crossings in Francophone Latin American literary memory work. By demoting the visual, Monénembo reiterates a sense of disorientation that emerges in his earlier writing, yet here the motion is more a sway between overlapping temporalities. His continued focus on mobility in the postcolonial world, the recurrence of absent protagonists, and an emphasis on soundscape present new ways of remembering past experiences of suffering and solidarity.