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I am so, so proud of my incredible Mauritian author Carl de Souza. He was recently honored with the Commander of the Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean medal—and he's just turned it down.
He's led a long career as an educator—he came out of retirement to advise the government on policy—and been a superlative badminton player in a family full of them—he met his wife on the court and his daughter has represented Mauritius at the Olympics level.
But I met him, and will always think of him first and foremost, as an author. Having come of age during Mauritius's independence in 1968 and lived through the country's ups and downs, he's made his beloved island his perennial subject of exploration and interrogation.
His KAYA DAYS—where he delves into the island's painful days of race riots—is a masterpiece of Mauritian literature. I translated it unprompted, on basis of its brilliance alone. And yet I know that the recent oil spill—and news coverage—finally secured it an American publisher.
This oil spill has been a polarizing, difficult matter adroitly explained by @Ariel_Saramandi and so many other young Mauritians who have seen the government turn its back on its peoples and on what has made the island so strong. I knew this was difficult for Carlo too.
Yesterday, he turned down the Commander of the Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean medal. He showed that he wasn't willing to rest on his laurels, or to let the next generation shoulder the burdens left by the present one.
"What would be the meaning of being decorated for past actions," he asks in his letter, "when the present is being persistently disfigured and soiled and basic principles of law and justice not seen to be attended to?"
I'm so, so proud to translate an author of conviction.
I'm so, so proud to translate an author of conviction.
