In Baldwin, Styron and me, the author from Saguenay Mélikah Abdelmoumen takes the reader between places and times, mixing the story of her personal journey with that of the discovery of the work and friendship of writers James Baldwin and William Styron. The first is African American and the grandson of a slave, and the second, a Southern white and the grandson of a slave owner. As a dialogist, the author imagines the exchanges of the two friends and even has Baldwin talk to the characters of his own books… “I hoped to make this relationship alive as I see it to make it known to others, she says. With the elements at his disposal, the reader is free to identify with this story of friendship or even to oppose the perspective that I propose. Books invite dialogue: to paraphrase Baldwin, we are alone until we open a book. »
Although written by Abdelmoumen, Baldwin, Styron and me, speaks collectively. Woven from the doubts and questions of stakeholders whose contribution is duly celebrated at the end of the book, it has been enriched by the discussions and collaborations that have marked each stage of its seven-year gestation: meetings of the book club Lyonnais through which the author became familiar with the work of James Baldwin up to the presentation of a theatrical performance within the framework of the International Festival of Literature (FIL), passing through a residency at the Square Bookstore. “The bookseller Jonathan Vartabédian and I invited writers who we knew did not share the same points of view to debate in front of the public. We were very attached to the idea of dialogue,” says the author.
Focus the gaze
“As far back as I can remember, I’ve always felt suspicious of issues that everyone seizes on at the same time to get angry about in the same way, with the same words. Literature has given me the tools to dig deeper into this feeling, ”says the one who lived in France for twelve years, between 2005 and 2017. In the irreducibly complex friendship of Baldwin and Styron, Mélikah Abdelmoumen sees a key to understanding identity tensions. that characterize the world today.
For the novelist and essayist, it is important to place ideas and remarks in the context in which they were born to remember “that we are far from having invented hot water or the four-hole button. My father, raised in the French way in Tunisia, first immigrating to France then to Quebec before returning to live in France, taught me the importance of decentering the gaze, in space and in time”.
As such, it is worth remembering that the notion of cultural appropriation was not born with the controversies surrounding the shows SLĀV and Kanata, by Robert Lepage, since that is precisely what William Styron was accused of in 1968 for having written the novel Confessions of Nat Turner. Encouraged in this direction by his friend James Baldwin, Styron devoted himself to a radical exercise of empathy by imagining himself in the place of the other, an approach deemed essential by the two artists for the recognition of the character to occur. common and shared of the painful history of slavery in the United States. “This idea of empathy is still hotly debated today,” notes Mélikah Abdelmoumen.
Written in the first person, Confessions of Nat Turner offers a fictionalized version of the story of a very real slave who fomented a revolt in 1831 in Virginia, not far from Styron’s birthplace. Although supported by Baldwin, the novelist will find himself at the heart of a major controversy, including the publication of the critical work William Styron’s Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond is definitely a highlight.
The art of debate
From her years spent in France, Mélikah Abdelmoumen retains the formative character of “fiery” evenings where opposing ideas were exchanged without discrediting the supporters of this or that camp and without the injunction to have to choose one in the end. Can it be that several people can be equally right without agreeing?
The clash of ideas is not used to clear your conscience, but to make you think
“The story of my discovery of Baldwin and Styron is like those evenings. I found them both extraordinary and then along came the Ten Black Writers, which shook my idea of figures who had wished to change the world and who had certainly changed mine. Reading their book, I said to myself: gosh, I understand how they feel, and they too are right. The clash of ideas is not used to clear your conscience, but to make you think. Unfortunately, we too often make the amalgam that a positive review is “nice” and a negative review is “mean”.
Vis-à-vis the measures taken by public institutions in recent years to promote the participation of those who, like her, correspond to the official definitions of “diversity”, Mélikah Abdelmoumen is critical, without denying the relevance of these mechanisms and the results obtained. “We use categories that essentialize people and reduce the complexity of the journeys,” underlines the native of La Baie. “What exasperates me is when people tell me how I should feel as a bearer of plural cultural identities. On the one hand, I am given to understand that I should not criticize inclusive initiatives on the pretext that they are the benevolence of the institutions towards me, whereas, on the other, these doubts lead me to be accused of betray the cause of anti-racism. “Like the beloved figures of Baldwin and Styron, Mélikah Abdelmoumen, however, chooses to remain on the edge, “in an eternal and saving shock”.
The clash of ideas is not used to clear your conscience, but to make you think