Tracing de Chazal’ s early career path, one would struggle to find an indication that he was predestined for the rich mélange of artistry that characterises his work. Born in 1902, he spent his childhood in the centre of the island, a key source of inspiration later in his life, before leaving to study sugar engineering in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1918. His return in 1923 proved to be a shock.
In five years, Mauritius had changed dramatically. De Chazal quickly ran up against the status quo of an outdated sugar industry, and could not resign himself to staying silent.“ It was at this point that he launched his first foray into the literary world, writing a series of vitriolic economic and political articles, accompanied by statistical analyses of the sugar sector. In these early articles, we discover for the first time the humanist ideas he would retain throughout his life,” says Robert Furlong, President of the Centre culturel d’ expression française de Maurice.
During a conversation with the poet Robert Edward Hart and the painter Hervé Masson, de Chazal discovered a myth that would revolutionise his thinking: the myth of Lemuria. The story began with an astonishing idea advanced by the Reunionese poet and politician Jules Hermann: under the Mascarene Islands lay a submerged continent that was once home to an advanced civilisation, the remains of which can be discerned to this day in the sculpting of the region’ s landscapes. This revelation led to one of Chazal’ s most important masterpieces: Petrusmok.
“ Petrusmok is a multi-faceted attempt to penetrate, through the myth of Lemuria, another part of this island world,” Furlong continues. A passionate lover of his country, de Chazal’ s gaze is transformed by the search for signs, revealing a new way of perceiving the island; an invisible treasure obscured by the veneer of a universallyaccepted reality.
S’ inspirer
In the early 1940s, de Chazal’ s reflections began to be imbued with philosophy and even elements of mysticism.“ His first purely literary work, Pensées, published in 1940, called for a reconsideration of received ideas, and proposed new ways of thinking about love, spirituality, and the role of the individual in the social fabric,” Furlong continues. Known for the frenetic pace of his creativity, de Chazal pursued each of his thoughts to their limit.
“ He produced a thousand aphorisms, culminating in his 1947 classic Sens Plastique. One can already sense the feeling of a‘ last gasp’ in its writing. This is typical of Malcolm de Chazal: once he had said everything he had to say on a subject, he closed the book,” explains Robert Furlong.
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