Le Chercheur d’Afriques : Henri Lopes, Créolité , and Jazz

AbstractHenri Lopes’s Citation1990 novel, Le Chercheur d’Afriques, embraces the post-colonial reality of multiple roots (Glissant). Much like Jazz music itself, the novel embodies the principles of la créolité outlined by Bernabé, Chamoiseau, and Confiant in their 1989 work, Éloge de la Créolité. This paper will explore the rhythms, musical composition, and musical intersections that enrich and shape the novel paying particular attention to jazz music, lyrics, rhythm, and sounds embedded in the novel’s structure, language, and imagery, and examine ways in which the layering music and musical references throughout the text has the power to create soundscapes, evoke emotions and memories.Keywords: Henri LopesCréolitéJazzCongoFrancophone Notes1 All translations are mine2 The narrator, André, notes that he thought Mouloudji was biracial like him “because of his lips and his hair” (Lopes 14).3 In response to the question about the role music plays in Lopes’ work, the author replies, “En fait, je pense que l’entrée de la musique se trouve dans Le chercheur d’Afriques” (Prüschenk 130).4 A soundtrack for Henri Lopes’s novels compiled by Anthony Mangeon is available on YouTube at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrBC0vF_Opv-o1CNGQPLdTJ3muA0ul-8i5 “www.rfimusique.com/siteFr/biographie/biographie_9027.asp”6 “www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/print/robeson_p.html”7 “The drum beats, and insists, inviting the village to gather. Thump, thump, thump. Muted, throbbing beats. One, then several women wail. The drum continues its demonic rhythm as if to convince even the wise ones and the elders to get up to come stomp the ancestral grounds.”8 “Charlie Parker’s sax threw a musical serpentine into the piece, gliding, spinning, whirling quickly to take off again, unstoppable, into a spiraling rocket” (33).9 Mpoto = EuropeAdditional informationNotes on contributorsJulia PraudDr. Julia Praud is an Associate Professor of French at the United States Military Academy where she serves as the French Program Director in the Department of Foreign Languages. At West Point, Julia teaches a variety of courses from language to literature. Her research interests include francophone literature from Africa with a focus on post-independence literary production.