'L'Europe s'est effacée, voici l'Asie': un Français entre l'est et l'ouest et entre deux femmes fantasmées dans Ameenah (1935), le 'roman mauricien' de Clément Charoux

Charoux uses the geographical situation of the island between East (India) and West (France) to explore a clash of cultures. Yet, here, both the colonized Indian Other (Ameenah, the sugar plantation worker) and French identity are fantasized (Thérèse, Delettre's French fiancée). The love-triangle is short-lived, Delettre's own anchor points in his French culture come loose and he chooses Ameenah, attempting to forge a new bi-cultural identity for her; but in 1912 the result is abject pidgin (positive créolisation will arrive in the1970s). However, the novel concentrates on the heroic but doomed attempt by the couple to openly mix cultures, thereby transcending the social norms of more conservative French colonists and 'anglo-saxons' (p. 200).