NEW CARIBBEAN BOOK IN FRANCE, ON MEMORY, HISTORY

PARIS - MARINS DÉSARMÉS / Unarmed Mariners, a bilingual poetry collection by the award-winning Jamaican writer and editor Alecia McKenzie, hits French bookshops in March.

Translated by C. & S. Renard, this compelling volume focuses on history, memory and resistance, and comprises two parts: “The Sea | Port Poems (La Mer | Poèmes portuaires)” and “Travels with a Mother (Voyages avec ma mère)”.

The first section explores the role of European ports involved in the transatlantic trade of enslaved people – in “dialogue” with Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner – while the second is a more personal contemplation of childhood, motherhood, displacement, and family ties.

An earlier Portuguese-English version of the book was published in Lisbon (2024) with the title Marinheiros Desarmados (translated by H. Lopes), and a powerful short film – Albatrossed – has been made, based on the main poem, with subtitles in French. 

This formed part of the MANIFEST Project, an initiative under the Creative Europe Programme that offered new artistic perspectives “to contribute to and enhance the re-imagination of Europe’s collective memory” of the transatlantic trade of enslaved people. McKenzie was among 22 artists selected from 13 countries in 2023, with her multimedia artwork consisting of poetry, the film, and several evocative oil and acrylic paintings - all highlighting the importance of memory.

Over the past year, the film has been screened at universities and cultural events in several cities, including Nantes, Brussels, Oviedo, Amiens and Tartu. It was shown at the Jamaican Embassy in Belgium during Heritage Week of October 2025.

MARINS DÉSARMÉS, the new bilingual French-English collection, is an expanded volume and edition, with double the number of poems, from a a Guadeloupean publishing house that focuses particularly on literature linked to the Caribbean, Atlantiques Déchainés.

The work “creates a spellbinding cartography of personal ‘sea’ stories that explore the burden (or albatross) of history” and it poignantly discusses the legacy of enslavement and colonialism, while also paying homage to major writers and artists of the Black Atlantic, according to the publishers.

McKenzie’s previous book in French, the novel Trésor (Sweetheart, translated by S. Schler), won the Prix Carbet des lycéens in 2017. She is the author of A Million Aunties, Satellite City and Gone to the Dogs (Madam), as well as the founder of SWAN and The Caribbean Translation Project. Her short-story collection Stories from Yard (Peepal Tree Press) was recently reissued with a new cover, to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of its publication. McKenzie will be present at literary festivals in Paris and Brussels during March.

More information about the author can be found via her official website: www.aleciamckenzie.com or at https://atlantiquesdechaines.com.