(et je m’adresse ainsi aux nuages de cayalis,oiseaux fugaces, qui ont si grande peur du sel,et délibèrent dans l’azur de partir.)*(and this is how I address the clouds of kayali,
fugitive birds, so fearful of salt,
and deliberate in the azure of leaving.)

é d oua r d g lissantTranslated by Nathanaël

La collection kayali
The kayali serieschez Quattro Books
at Quattro Books
recadence la langue anglaise
recadences the English language
en français et en kréyol
in French and Kréyol
suivant les littératures de la Martinique.
following the literatures of Martinique.
Ici, la traduction touche à sa profonde palpitation
Translation here gains its full senseen acte de vitalité intime.
as a palpitant act of intimate vitality.
*édouard glissantin collaboration with Sylvie Séma

1

Errances of Rapa Nui,
Easter Island

The Magnetic Land
Édouard Glissantin collaboration with Sylvie Séma

Translated by Nathanaël

The Magnetic land
Errances of Rapa Nui, Easter Island

Translated by Nathanaël2023 | isbn:| $20 cad / $20 usd
The Magnetic Land, Errances of Rapa Nui was
first published in the “Peuples de l’eau” (peoplesof the water) series edited by Édouard Glissantfor éditions du Seuil. This work, iconoclastic in
the context of Glissant’s œuvre, written in tandemwith his life partner, the artist Sylvie Séma, gives
embodied sense to the poetics of Relation that
underwrote the philosopher-poet’s life work fromits earliest beginnings.
Édouard Glissant (1928-2011) introduced
the notion of antillanité as a way of reconsidering
the world as archipelago. Drawing fromthe subdued histories of his native Martinique,
he elaborated a poetics of creolization andRelation, the foundments of which are to be foundon the slave plantation of the Americas.
Édouard Glissant taught in the United States
at Louisiana State University and at the City
University in New York. In 2006, he founded
the Institut du Tout-Monde in Paris.

maryse condé

The Bossale
Civilisation

Reflections on the oral literatureof Guadeloupe and MartiniqueTranslated by Nathanaël
2023 | isbn:| $20 cad / $20 usd
The Bossale Civilisation is as relevant today as when
it first appeared in 1978. It illumines History as to its
calculated falsehoods, and the persistence of what can
only be qualified as the Truth. The Bossale is the Africanslave deported by the Atlantic Slave Trade into theplantations of Martinique and Guadeloupe, and who,from out of his and her struggles, sufferings and hopes,
will create an entire oral literature. It is through thisoral literature that Maryse Condé seeks to bring out
the true face of her ancestors: the Bossales.
Maryse Condé was born in Guadeloupe in 1937.
She earned her doctorate at Université Sorbonne
Nouvelle, and taught Francophone Literature
at Columbia University in New York. Her worldwide
bestseller Segu earned her the African Literature Prize.
Condé was awarded the “Alternative Nobel” in
Literature as well as the Cino Del Duca World Awardfor her oeuvre. Best known as a novelist, Maryse
Condé’s essays are a cornerstone of her oeuvre.

2Reflections on the oral literatureof Guadeloupe and Martinique

The Bossale
Civilisation

Maryse Condétranslated by Nathanaël

monchoachi

3

NostromMonchoachitranslated by Nathanaël

Nostrom

Translated by Nathanaël
2023 | isbn:| $25 cad / $25 usd
First published in 1982 by the historic publishinghouse Éditions Caribéennes, Nostrom’s five cantos
trace the emergence from a long wake, the wakeof the Caribbean everyman. The resulting song isinseparable from the landscape out of which its word
is born, and offers itself as remedy, “leaving death todeath.” Originally written in facing Kréyol and French,
this trilingual edition allows the vibrational relays
between languages their full resonance.
Born in 1946 in Le Saint-Esprit, monchoachi
lives today in retreat on the Vauclin mountainof Martinique. The poet, whose work has beenrecognised by the Prix Max-Jacob (for L’espèregeste) and the lifetime achievement award,
Le Prix Carbet, seeks, through his work to “restorethe dignity of the Kréyol language.” The authorof a dozen works of poetry, and several essays,
he is the founder of the Lakouzémi project.

arlette pacquit & nathanaëlAndidan

5

Intimate Cinemas of Arlette Pacquit

Translated by Nathanaël
2024 | isbn:| $25 cad / $25 usd
Andidan in Kréyol refers to the inside. For Nathanaël,in the presence of Arlette Pacquit’s documentaries,
this term further evokes interlacings—imprints andinscriptions that keep something of their secret.
Envisioning the book as a form of listening, just as
Pacquit’s films enact listening as a form of intimate
attentiveness to the world, Andidan presents written
and spoken interviews, transcriptions of films,writings by the filmmaker, and an essay by Nathanaël.
Arlette Pacquit is a journalist and director basedin Martinique. She has written and directed several
films on Caribbean culture. Her documentary feature
Héritiers du Viêt Nam (2015–in English as Sons andDaughters of Vietnam) was awarded Best Caribbean
film at RCM Martinique and Best diaspora filmat Africlap Festival in Toulouse. Her documentary
Monchoachi La parole sovaj (2021–in English as
Monchoachi An Untamed Wor(l)d) was awarded
the Grand Prix du Festival Africlap in Toulouse.

AndidanIntimate Cinemas of Arlette Pacquit

Arlette Pacquit& Nathanaël

alfred alexandre

4

The Bar ofthe Americas
Alfred Alexandre
Translated by Nathanaël

The Bar of the Americas
Translated by Nathanaël2024 | isbn:| $25 cad / $25 usd

The Bar of the Americas is a novel of lost love. A loss
whose memory and unsurpassable pain settle Bahia
in an enclosure of brooding errance. An enclosure
she believes it is possible to break out of when afterthirty years, one morning, very early, at the evaporated
edge of the sea, she meets, as though in a mirror,
another face of errance in the person of Leeward,
an old smuggler of stowaways adrift whose life
is limited to drinking in the company of his old
accomplice, Hilaire. This novel, Alexandre’s third,
is an aching poem of errant solitudes on the muchabused seas of the Americas.
Alfred Alexandre was born in Martinique where
he lives and writes. His novel, Bord de Canal, wasawarded the Prix des Amériques insulaires in 2005;
his play, Le Patron, earned him the prix ETCBeaumarchais 2016 for best francophone text.
The lifetime achievement award Prix Carbet
de la Caraïbe et du Tout-Monde was presented tohim in 2020. Alexandre is Artistic Director of theCentre Caribéen des dramaturgies contemporains,ETC Caraïbe.

kayaliNathanaël, series editor
Frédéric Lagnau, design*Bilal Hashmi
Director
Quattro Books

kayali@quattrobooks.com
www.quattrobooks.com/kayali