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Volume 4, Number 1 - Fall 2005

Inmates Respond to Shadows in Texts at French Prison
by Katia Salomon

Why is it that stories dominated by “shadows” and “poetics” are the most treasured by my groups at Fleury-Mérogis, a large prison south of Paris?

The participants come from all walks of life – a street seller of merguez (North African lamb sausage), a journalist, a supermarket employee and young men with no jobs and no degrees. Some have never read literature, others have, but, as one participant told me, “Until now I have always read to find out what comes next. Now I realize that a single page can contain treasures!”

One much -loved story is “In Search of Zaabalâwi” (The Time and the Place, Anchor, 1992) by Egyptian author and Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz. It is a story about a journey of the narrator through time, through the narrow streets of Cairo. He meets people from various professions. There are tensions and contrasts created by the way people approach their work and relationships – from corruption to sincerity. But the core of the story is about the search for Zaabalâwi.

Our discussion about him brought only interrogation and no agreement. Was this a search for a real person? A mythical friend? A saint? A holy grail? An idea? The soul? Each participant had his own idea, even conviction, as to the identity, the reality of Zaabalâwi.

Two months after having read the story, I received a letter from Fousseiny, a participant who had been freed. He wanted to share the importance of the reading:

“Today, I have started to work and I manage little by little to integrate myself into society with a positive approach. I believe that without the reading circle things could have gone differently. I seek Zaabalâwi and I believe that one of these days I will find him. I've already seen a small Zaabalâwi as I got out: my son.”  

Sometimes I choose a short text or poem to read after the discussion of the story. When we read “Eveline” or “Araby” from Dubliners I read a passage aloud from the final monologue of Alp in Finnegan’s Wake to give a taste of the mature James Joyce. The participants are surprised, then enthralled, by the shadows and poetics created by the liberty Joyce takes with language, by the strange-sounding words. One young man, Léandre, who had never read, picked out the one word, “moananoaning”, from the text below and held on to it, repeating it softly, like a lullaby – probably an echo of his own state. 

“And it's old and old it's sad and old it's sad and weary I go back to you, my cold father, my cold mad father, my cold mad feary father, till the near sight of the mere size of him, the moyles and moyles of it, moananoaning, makes me seasilt saltsick and I rush, my only, into your arms..”

Gathering to read inside a prison for a Gens et Récits session feels like sitting under the shade of a tree in the heat of summer. A moment to listen, dialogue, exchange. Could it be, then, that the more the text is full of shadows and poetry, the deeper the enjoyment, the escape?

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