The Indian Ocean is home to many literary texts, from

Greco-Roman The Greco-Roman civilization (; also Greco-Roman culture; spelled Graeco-Roman in the Commonwealth), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were di ...

times to ''

One Thousand and One Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...

'', the matrix of many

narratives A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc.). Narra ...

, which portrays Sinbad the Merchant through a fantastic and popular twist of the mind, and which is based on real details of navigation in this first ocean of

globalisation Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...

. Combining Indian and Chinese literatures, among the oldest on the planet, this can be characterized as the most fictionalized ocean, having been the backbone of many tales, novels and poetic work. This was further enhanced when

Bartholomew Diaz Bartolomeu Dias ( 1450 – 29 May 1500) was a Portuguese mariner and explorer. In 1488, he became the first European navigator to round the southern tip of Africa and to demonstrate that the most effective southward route for ships lay in the o ...

rounded the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is t ...

in 1488, paving the way for

Vasco da Gama Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (; ; c. 1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea. His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499) was the first to link E ...

, who reached Malindi, before being guided to Calicut, the desired port of spices, by a mualim or regional pilot. The Portuguese poet Camoens then wrote his famous ''Luciads''.

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...

sojourned there. So did Bernardin de Saint Pierre, who invented the naturalist novel with '' Paul et Virginie'', an idyllic and tragic

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

under the tropics, in Mauritius.

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poetry, French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticis ...

also carried his spleen there, experimenting the correspondences and falling in love with Creole and Indian ladies, as expressed in his poems "La dame créole" and "A une malabaraise". In

Réunion Réunion (; french: La Réunion, ; previously ''Île Bourbon''; rcf, label= Reunionese Creole, La Rényon) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. It is located approximately east of the island ...

, Rouget Leconte de Lisle is foremost, with symbolist poetry. Many more poets went to the Mascarene islands, like

Paul-Jean Toulet Paul-Jean Toulet (5 June 1867, Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques - 6 September 1920) was a French poet, novelist and feuilleton writer. Life and works Paul-Jean Toulet was the son of a wealthy sugar planter, originally from Pau but living in Mauri ...

Colonial era

In the colonial era, writers like Rabemananjara and Rabearivelo took French to new horizons, combining their original languages and cultures with the colonists' idiom. In

, Marius and Ary Leblond developed the colonial novel, and in Mauritius, Clément Charoux and Léoville L'Homme expressed the contradictions of cultures and colours in a colonial environment. Preceding the independence period, Mauritian writers like

Marcel Cabon Marcel Cabon (born, ''Jacques Marsèle'') (February 29, 1912 at Curepipe – January 31, 1972) was a writer, journalist, and poet. Life Marcel Cabon grew up in the village of Petite Rivière Noire on the west side of the island of Mauritius. At ...

, Jean-Georges Prosper, Edouard Maunick, Robert Edward-Hart, René Noyau and Emmanuel Juste espoused négritude or more Mauritian themes.

Postcolonial era

In the 1970s, more "sociological" writers such

Marie-Thérèse Humbert Marie-Thérèse Humbert (born July 17, 1940) is a Mauritian writer. She is a recipient of the Grand prix des lectrices de Elle. Biography She was born in Quatre Bornes and was educated at Cambridge University and the Sorbonne. She moved to France ...

expressed the duality of multiculturalism. Recent Mauritian writers include

Ananda Devi Ananda Devi Nirsimloo-Anenden, also known as Ananda Devi, (born March 23, 1957) is a Mauritian writer. Biography Ananda Devi Nirsimloo was born the village of Trois-Boutiques, Grand Port District, Mauritius. Her father Balgopal and her mother Sar ...

, Natacha Appanah, Carl de Souza,

Shenaz Patel Shenaz Patel (born July 29, 1966) is a Mauritian writer. Early life and education She was born in the town of Rose Hill, Mauritius and writes in both French and Mauritian Creole. She did her secondary studies at Lycée La Bourdonnais. Subsequentl ...

, Barlen Pyamootoo and

Khal Torabully Khal Torabully is a Mauritian poet. Born in Mauritius in 1956, in the capital city Port Louis, his father was a Trinidadian sailor and his mother was a descendant of migrants from India and Malaya. Work Khal Torabully left for Lyon in 1976, t ...

References

{{Reflist Indian Ocean Asian literature African literature

Colonial era

Postcolonial era

See also

References