New from Signal Books
Caribbean Winter
Paul Morand
Translation and Introduction by Mary Gallagher
· Paul Morand was a French diplomat and noted European author who wrote about his journey through the Caribbean, Latin America and the American South in the 1920s
· Vivid travel writing that also touches on controversial issues of mass migration and race that are still with us today
· While most of Morand’s work has been translated into English, this is the first translation in any language of Hiver Caraïbe
“This is a timely translation of an important work of great originality and generosity from an independent, non-conformist mind. Though sharing the failings of his colonialist times, Morand reaches out, in the wake of Joseph Conrad, Lafcadio Hearn and André Gide, towards the wider world.”—J.M.G. Le Clézio
In 1927, Paul Morand — a French diplomat and noted European author — made two extended trips to the Caribbean, Latin America and the American South. Published in 1929, his travel account begins as a diary about his experience of Venezuela, Curaçao, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Haiti, Trinidad, Jamaica and Cuba and ends with a lengthy essay on Mexico. Morand was already a prolific, cosmopolitan writer but he had not yet acquired his controversial post-war reputation. The stylish writing of Caribbean Winter fizzes with an acute intelligence and a rich — though sometimes elliptical — allusiveness (which is why this translation includes explanatory notes). It maps not just Morand’s vivid impressions but also his main preoccupations, particularly with the shifting place of Europe in the new world order. Although he avoids all direct mention of the ethnocidal clearing of the ‘New World’ or the African American slave-trade, he is obsessed by the perceived threats posed to Europe’s own future by mass migration and miscegenation. Morand was, above all, an uber-European and his work betrays the pseudo-scientific racialism of his time and background. Yet despite this blindness he was, at least, glimpsing the right questions to ask about the future of his world. And he knew that the Caribbean held most of the answers. He seems to have even intuited some of those answers and so parts of his commentary are startlingly modern and prescient. Much of Morand’s pre-war non-fiction seems to have warranted about seven decades of political quarantine. But the twenty-first century is gradually re-discovering its significance, both in French and in translation. Interestingly, while almost all of his work has by now made its way into English, this is the first translation — into any language — of Hiver Caraïbe.
Paul Morand (1888-1976) was the author of numerous novels, novellas and travel accounts. Mary Gallagher is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at University College Dublin.
Publication date: November 2018
ISBN: 9781909930681
Pages: 176
Price: £12.99 paperback
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