CAPTIVE

Captive is a chapbook of vignettes that explores the feminine

condition through the lens of Melissa. She questions her body, her

longings, her thoughts and even her existence in a patriarchal society

where both men and women look at the female body as an object that can

be owned.

Melissa, the protagonist is an adolescent who navigates in other names

Mel and Veronica as her context conditioned her to limitations. Despite

all trauma, Captive invites us to empower and celebrate womanhood

instead of being shamed, victimized and silenced.

The structure of Captive is marked by a blend of prose and free verse

poetry. The language demarcates itself from the repressive patriarchal

language. The poetic tone as well as the shifts from English to French

and even to Mauritian Creole reflects the Ecriture Feminine. The rupture

or even the blanks altogether express a language free from repression

where even silence speaks louder than words and contemplates vivid

imaginations.