From Black Caribbean to A Man of the New World

The identity path of Dany Laferrière

Abstract

This article intends to examine the identity process in Je suis fatigué (2005), a book written by Dany Laferrière, articulating from a geo-racial enclave (The Caribbean) to the achievement of an imaginary space that surpasses this categorization and that is intended not to be racialized, that is, a universal space with no color and no fixed geography. In this work, the first-person narrator reflects on the meaning of the word Nègre (Negro), which is polysemic in the French language. Mulatto and Negro represent the racial conflict in Haiti, whereas Black and White represent the two poles in continuous struggle outside the island (FANON, 2008). Thus, to achieve our goal, we conducted a bibliographic research to base our analysis on « Je suis un individu» : le projet d’individualité dans l’oeuvre romanesque de Dany Laferrière (2011) by Jimmy Thibeault and Littérature negro-africaine d’amérique : mythe ou réalité (1983) by Anthony Phelps. We conclude that the author calls himself Un homme du Nouveau Monde (A man of the New World) without a migratory mark of origin, race, and nationality.