Return

Translated by Allison M. Charette

A powerful testament to writing as an act of beauty and rebellion that speaks truth and condemns violent legacies and a feverish ode that weaves together personal and national history to finally find healing. 

This evocative novel from a great figure of Malagasy literature tells the story of Hira, a writer born on the seventh anniversary of Madagascar’s independence. He wanders through different cities on a book tour, but the experience is amnesiac and confusing. There is a past he is trying to reckon with, filled with violence against both his family and country.

He runs from his wife and represses his memories until it all explodes in fever dreams and a vomit of words. But to write the rebirth that he yearns for, Hira must write of his father’s torture, his tortured island, and how both were juxtaposed to his own happy childhood. In combing through these various pasts, he might make the same mistake his father did: trying to change the world but leaving his own family broken.  

Drawing from the lived experience of both the author and his parents, the violence of both life and language, and the stories of both myth and history, Return is a search for an individual’s place within larger collective trauma. Infused with Raharimanana’s signature poeticism and intensity, this is a masterwork by an as-yet-overlooked but essential voice in the postcolonial tradition.