mohit chandna Mohit Chandna SPATIAL BOUNDARIES Colonialism advanced its project of territorial expansion by changing the very meaning of borders and space. The colonial project scripted a unipolar spatial discourse that saw the AbOUNDING colonies as an extension of European borders. In his mono- graph, Mohit Chandna engages with narrations of spatial conflicts in French and Francophone literature and film from the nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. In literary Colonial Borders in French and Francophone Literature and Film Literature and Francophone in French Colonial Borders SPATIAL SPACES works by Jules Verne, Ananda Devi, and Patrick Chamoiseau, and film by Michael Haneke, Chandna analyzes the depiction of ever-changing borders and spatial grammar within the colonial project. In so doing, he also examines the ongoing resistance to the spatial legacies of colonial practices that act BOUNDARIE as omnipresent enforcers of colonial borders. Literature and film become sites that register colonial spatial paradigms and advance competing narratives that fracture the dominance of these borders. Through its analyses, Spatial Boundaries, Abounding Spaces S shows that colonialism is not a finished project relegated to | Ab our past. Colonialism is present in the here and now, and exercises its power through the borders that define us. OUNDING SPACE Mohit Chandna completed his doctoral studies at Cornell University, New York, and currently works as assistant professor in the Department of French and Francophone Studies at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. Colonial Borders S ISBN 978-94 6270 273 8 in French and Francophone Literature and Film 9 7 8 9 4 6 2 7 0 2 7 3 8 Omslag Spatial bounderies – ScanLaser.indd 1 14-06-21 08:19 Spatial Boundaries, Abounding Spaces Spatial Boundaries, Abounding Spaces COLONIAL BORDERS IN FRENCH AND FRANCOPHONE LITERATURE AND FILM Mohit Chandna Leuven University Press Published with the support of the KU Leuven Fund for Fair Open Acces Published in 2021 by Leuven University Press / Presses Universitaires de Louvain / Universitaire Pers Leuven. Minderbroedersstraat 4, B-3000 Leuven (Belgium). © 2021 Mohit Chandna This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Non-Derivative 4.0 Licence. Further details about Creative Commons licences are available at http://creativecom- mons.org/licenses/ Attribution should include the following information: Mohit Chandna, Spatial Boundaries, Abounding Spaces: Colonial Borders in French and Francophone Literature and Film. Leuven, Leuven University Press. (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) ISBN 978 94 6270 273 8 (Paperback) ISBN 978 94 6166 383 2 (ePDF) ISBN 978 94 6166 384 9 (ePUB) https://doi.org/10.11116/9789461663832 D/2021/1869/16 NUR: 633 Layout: Crius Group Cover design: André Klijsen Cover illustration: RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac) / Hervé Lewandowski For Prem … These feet may be mine but I walk because of you TABLE OF CONTENTS Note on Translations 11 Acknowledgements 13 Prologue 15 Chapter 1 Introduction: Charting Course 19 Anchoring Space 22 Doing Space 28 Geographies of Literature 31 Postmodern Spaces – Material Histories 40 Chapter 2 Around the World in Eighty (One) Days 45 Section 1. Understanding Verne: Laying the Groundwork 49 Verne and the World 53 Verne’s Geography 56 Geography on Verne 60 Reading Verne’s Geographies 66 Rounding up the World 68 Capital Repetitions: Monghir 71 7 8 Spatial Boundaries, Abounding Spaces Section 2. Opium Silence and Nineteenth-Century French Literature 78 Colonizing Hong Kong 81 Illegal Opium and Colonial Wealth 89 Opium Cities 94 Opium Race 98 Chapter 3 Dislocating the Indian Nation: Ananda Devi’s Homelands 107 Global Pathways 109 Along a Local Road 111 Dislocating Location 115 Grounding Identity 118 Patriarchal Homelands 121 Tango with India 126 Delhi’s Underbelly 133 Antipodal Itineraries 136 Desert Safari 140 Producing Dissent 145 Rediscovering India 152 Chapter 4 Martinique: Space, Language, Gender 155 Section 1. Contextualizing Te x aco 157 Texaco and its Significations 157 A Spatial Metaphor 158 Literary Margins: City and Language 159 Marie-Sophie as Te x aco 163 Chamoiseau and Feminism 164 Reinventing the City 167 Section 2. Martinique’s Literary Identity and French Borders 169 Martinique: Colonial History, Postcolonial Literature 169 French Borders, Martinican Text 174 Section 3. Text, Te x aco and Landscape 177 Texaco: Space and Language 177 Rewriting l’En-ville 185 Table of Contents 9 Section 4. France, Martinique and Marie-Sophie’s Body 188 Marie-Sophie and Texaco 188 Marie-Sophie’s body and Martinique 197 Chapter 5 Out of Place: French Family at (Algerian) War 205 Immaterial Differences 206 Locating Caché 207 White Lies 211 Hidden Agenda 213 Colonial Family; National Lies 216 Colonial Past; Cinematic Present 221 Escaping Images 228 Deadly Images 232 Epilogue: Interjecting Passages 239 Notes 253 Bibliography 287 NOTE ON TRANSLATIONS Translations of quotations from literary works and films: English translations appear in square brackets and follow the original quotations within the main text. Translations of critical writings: English translations appear in the main text whereas the original French quotations only appear in the notes. Occasionally, when necessary for the argument some of the translations follow the original in the main text. Unless otherwise stated all English translations of French quotations are mine. 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Spatial Boundaries, Abounding Spaces: Colonial Borders in French and Franco­ phone Literature and Film is the result of many years of hard work and is a book that has become possible only because of the help of several friends, colleagues and institutions. I would like to start by thanking Nelly Furman. She has been a constant source of support and friendship, both when I was a graduate stu- dent and later when I started my career as a colleague in the profession. I shall forever remain indebted to Nelly. My thanks also go to Kathleen Long, for her professional guidance, to Mary Pat Brady for her help with my theoretical argu- ments, and to Debra Castillo for her friendship. Thank you David Bodenhamer for helping me find a home for this book. Without the supportive and professional environment at the Department of Romance Studies at Cornell University, and the Department of French and Francophone Studies at the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), this work could not have taken its current shape. Friends and colleagues from the Department of French and Francophone Studies at EFLU have contributed immensely to creating an environment conducive for research. Discussions with students and research scholars have helped me further refine my intellectual and theoretical positions. Rebecca Vedavathy B. very graciously agreed to read this manuscript. I owe Rebecca an unrepayable debt of gratitude for her remarks and suggestions. Thank you very much Jayanti di, Javeed sahab, Manjari Katju, Aniket Alam, Sara Aparajita and Rewa Anahita. Hyderabad is home because of you. My deep- est thanks to my family. Nabina and Spruha have generously tolerated the vagar- ies of this journey. Sarika and Rajiv, I cannot ever thank you enough. My parents are the reason I am where I am. I am grateful for their love and support. 13 14 Spatial Boundaries, Abounding Spaces A Shastri Mobility Programme (SMP) Grant by Shastri Indo Canadian Institute (SICI) enabled me to consult research material and interact with col- leagues in Canada. I would like to thank Centre d’études et de recherche sur l’Inde, l’Asie du Sud et sa diaspora (CERIAS), and the Département d’études littéraires, both located at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), for their support. The generous grant by the Paul Druwé Fund and the KU Leuven Fund for Fair Open Access has made it possible for this book to be available in the open access format. My sincerest thanks to KU Leuven. I would also like to thank the acquisitions editor at Leuven University Press, Mirjam Truwant, who has always been very generous with guidance and help. Irina du Quenoy’s editing skills have helped this manuscript take its current shape. *** Several parts of this manuscript have been presented at conferences and pub- lished in English and French in edited volumes and journals. They are as fol- lows: “Caché, Colonial Psychosis and the Algerian War,” Interventions (2021); “Reading Devi’s Poetry” in Ananda Dévi, When the Night Agrees to Speak to Me. Translated by Kazim Ali. Harper Collins. 2021; “Paris, Rue Descartes et la poé- sie de Czesław Miłosz,” Caraivéti, Démarche de Sagesse. Jan-June 2019; “Produire le non-lieu: l’Inde à la dérive chez Ananda Dévi,” Caraivéti, Démarche de Sagesse: Numéro Spécial Sur Récit de Voyage. July-December 2017; “Femme et disloca- tion nationale chez Ananda Devi,” Interculturel Francophonies. Lecce: Alliance Française de Lecce, no. 28 (2015); “Time Is Money: Spaces of Colonial Desire and Jules Verne,” Victoriographies: A Journal of Nineteenth­Century Writing, 1790­1914. 3.2 (2013); “Colonialisme sans frontières: L’Espace colonial dans la littérature de jeunesse,” Littérature de Jeunesse: Réel et Imaginaire. Ed. Nalini Thampi. Pondicherry: Dept. of French, School of Humanities, Pondicherry University (2013); “Around the World in Eighty (One) Days,” in Cartographies of Affect: Across Borders in South Asia and the Americas, eds. Debra Castillo & Kavita Panjabi. Kolkata: Worldview Press, 2011; “Re-reading Postcolonial Women Authors,” International Journal