Portrait of an Island on Fire
In Portrait of an Island on Fire, essayist Ariel Saramandi writes about how race, gender, culture, and environmental change drive life in Mauritius, wrestling with the ongoing impact of the country’s past. With righteous anger and willingness to explore the root of problems, the book asks challenging and thoughtful questions.
The book opens with a helpful timeline of Mauritian history, reflecting waves of colonialism and immigration as well as major domestic events that shaped the culture of the African island nation. Then, across twelve essays, it interrogates the aftermath of that history. Its prose is thoughtful, addressing difficult subjects with care and considering myriad perspectives.
In the powerful essay “An Education,” Saramandi reflects on guest-lecturing on literature to white Francophone students. When she questions them about their casual use of racial slurs and finds they think little of it, she uses the incident as a chance to educate them about Mauritius’s complicated racial history. The essay expands to discuss other teachers’ reactions as well as Saramandi’s family’s roots. In “Snapshots of an Island on the Front Line,” she addresses how the climate-change-flouting decisions of richer nations saddled Mauritius with rising sea levels, endangering local wildlife and bringing deadly floods.
The collection’s nuance is captured well by “Bann-La,” which uses “we” in its interrogation of how some Mauritians view workers from Bangladesh as a lower tier of society and how official policy exploits their work and makes it almost impossible for them to become citizens. This and other essays underscore how group dynamics in Mauritius are complicated and how centuries of changing power structures continue to have major impacts.
Portrait of an Island on Fire is a nuanced and powerful look at race, influence, and colonial legacy in Mauritius.
Reviewed by
Jeff Fleischer
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
