Un poème sur la longue durée, écrit et réécrit au fil du temps

The Cahier is initially approached as a “moveable work” (Ernstpeter Ruhe) retracing its evolution over time through its four main editions: Volontés, 1939; Brentano’s, January 1947; Bordas, March 1947 and Présence Africaine, 1956. There is also an additional Cahier – nameless and nonexistent – made by the resumption of episodes often truncated, withdrawn of their context with the exclusion of obscure passages, never quoted. A maze-like text leading to an open ending articulating literary language and traditional orality, space and time whose meanings must be questioned in a “layered structure” (Lévi-Strauss), simultaneously antique, classic and modern. In order to translate it, one must understand this labyrinth as: a) a wandering in an historical individual and collective memory buried below ground; b) an aesthetic work with an irregular style and c) a mixture of styles. Translation then becomes, firstly, a means of understanding and secondly, the quest for a correspondence in another interbreeding Latin language in America.