Louis-Timagène Houat

Biography

Louis-Timagène Houat was born a free man of colour in Saint-Denis on 12 August 1809, on an island whose economy rested on slavery. As a young man he ran a free school and taught music. In 1835 he was arrested and prosecuted for an alleged plot: he was accused in particular of corresponding with the abolitionist Cyrille Bissette and of reading Bissette's newspapers to enslaved people around him. Sentenced to deportation in 1836, he was expelled to France despite a royal pardon; the sentence was later overturned by the Cour de cassation (France's highest appeal court).

In Paris he moved in abolitionist circles. In 1838 he published a text on his banishment, then, in 1844, Les Marrons, a novel about the flight and revolt of the enslaved people of Bourbon (Réunion's former name). A doctor, he also published a work on homeopathy in the 1860s. He died in Pau on 9 July 1883.

Contribution

Author of Les Marrons (1844), regarded as the first Réunion novel. The historian Philippe Bessière describes him as Réunion's first true abolitionist.

Legacy

Rediscovered in the late 20th century, his novel has been reissued since 1988 and is read both as a milestone in Réunion literature and as a record of the abolitionist debates.