Solibo was written a couple of years before Texaco, and also engages with the tension between “French” and “Creole” ways of looking at the world. Chamoiseau uses a parody of one of the most notoriously linear and logical narrative forms, the detective story, as a deliberately incongruous vehicle for an investigation into the role of a traditional storyteller and his increasingly tenuous place in the modern world. Solibo has died - inexplicably - in mid-sentence during a late night storytelling session under a tamarind tree in Fort de France, and a couple of local policemen are trying to find out who killed him, by the usual techniques of sifting physical evidence and collecting witness statements.

Needless to say, they get nowhere, and the neat narrative of the investigation refuses to advance in the approved linear fashion. Random accidents distract the cops from what they are supposed to be doing, whilst looping Creole recursions and excursions keep diverting us away from the matter in hand so that we can learn why a character has a particular name, or what they had for dinner and how it was cooked.

As in Texaco, the chief joy of this book is in the way Chamoiseau’s playful language allows us to feel that we have been given access to the richness of Creole culture. This sometimes sits a little uncomfortably with the rather heavy-handed satire of the police investigation, which keeps on drifting into grand guignol violence, however much the detective tries to pursue a calm, reasonable approach. So a slighter and less satisfying book than Texaco, but still very interesting. ( )