Genie and Paul (21 page)
Authors: Natasha Soobramanien
There is currently no standard orthography for Mauritian Creole. I have based mine on Baker and Hookoomsing's
Dictionary of Mauritian Creole
(L'Harmattan, 1987) and the version of Ledikasyon pu Travayer's
Prototype Mauritian Creole-English Dictionary
that is available online at www.lalitmauritius.org.
Genie's immediate impressions of Rodrigues are based on my own translation of an extract from Jean-Marie Le Clézio's
Voyage à Rodrigues
(Gallimard, 1999). Gaetan's story about the island of Saint Brandon is a retelling of one in Le Clézio's
The Prospector
(David Godine, 2008).
Another version of Grandmère's story about the lost dog first appeared in Luke Williams'
The Echo Chamber
(Hamish Hamilton, 2011). Further information about
Genie
and Paul
and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's
Paul et Virginie
are available at www.genieandpaul.com.
Natasha Soobramanien studied English at Hull University and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. She contributed two chapters to Luke Williams’ debut novel
The Echo Chamber
, winner of the Saltire Society’s Scottish First Book of the Year Award 2011. Natasha was born in London, where she now lives.
First edition published in 2012
This ebook edition published in 2012 by
Myriad Editions
59 Lansdowne Place
Brighton BN3 1FL
www.myriadeditions.com
Copyright © Natasha Soobramanien 2012
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978–1–908434–16–6
www.myriadeditions.com