Creolization, Hinduism, and Re-Worlding Trajectories in Contemporary Mauritian Fiction

This essay broadly examines how contemporary Mauritian novelist Amal Sewtohul underscores the specific contribution of South Asian cultures to the dynamics of creolization in the Mascarene region and the Indian Ocean. Focusing on the author's 2009 novel, Les Voyages et aventures de Sanjay, explorateur mauricien des Anciens Mondes, it reflects more specifically on the correlation and reciprocal impact which his literary work establishes between Hinduism (as a set of religious practices, beliefs, and performances) and Creolization (as a process of transcultural mixing whereby new meanings and identities are forged). Indeed, Sewtohul's representation of Hinduism as profoundly creolized not only reflects local syncretisms but also connects with broader processes of exchange, contamination, and variation across geographies and temporalities, that are part of what Édouard Glissant calls the Tout-monde.