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René Noyau (1911/12-84) was a Mauritian poet of African and European descent. He was also an essayist, playwright, chronicler, short story writer and aphorist. He wrote in French and Mauritian Creole and used a number of pseudonyms and initials: Jean Erenne, Jean-Claude Bouais, Michèle Bouais, Prof, Observateur, R., N., R.N., J.E., as well as his own name. He tended to use Jean Erenne for his poetry.

He influenced literary and social events in his island: for example, in 1934 he introduced surrealism with L’Ange aux Pieds d’Airain (The Angel with Feet of Bronze) and importantly in 1971 relaunched Mauritian Creole in literature with the fable Tention Caïma (Beware Crocs About). He was happy to acknowledge and celebrate his origins at a time when African ancestry and heritage were not prized or even mentioned. He was strongly for an independent Mauritius and in the 1950s made writing about politics and the dispossessed his main priority. He described himself as shy but audacious. In his writings he was prepared to stand against what he felt was unjust: he was a strong polemist.

His output is remarkable in quantity and quality. Apart from trying his hand at various genres he was also a prolific letter writer. His commercially published work was limited to two collections of poetry: L’Ange aux Pieds d’Airain (1934), Le Labyrinthe Illuminé (1939) (The Labyrinth Alight), one book of aphorisms and reflections: Le Poinçon de Cristal (1942) (The Cristal Punch). Those three books were signed Jean Erenne. He also published a book of short stories called Passerelles (1936) (Gateways) signed Jean-Claude Bouais. He edited Frontières (1940) (Frontiers) a collection of writings by various authors including two of his own: La Lettre (The Letter), a short story signed Jean Erenne and an essay Filière (Connections) signed Jean-Claude Bouais. Finally, in 1971 he published Tention Caïma, the fable in Mauritian Creole accompanied by a French version, Il y a Toujours des Caïmans (There will Always be Crocodiles), both signed René Noyau. In 2012/13 Gérard Noyau, his son, introduced and edited four volumes of his works, René Noyau, l’oeuvre, in Mauritius with the help of Culture et Avenir (Culture and the Future), a department attached to the office of the then Prime Minister of Mauritius. As a journalist and chronicler, René Noyau contributed to the dailies Le Mauricien, Le Cernéen, Advance, Action, and to the fortnightly Zamana. In all about 350 of his articles and chronicles have been recovered. The magazine, Le Musée Vivant, Paris, published two of his essays L’Europe et l’Afrique se sont retrouvées dans un tableau de Lapicque (1955) (Europe and Africa meet in a painting by Lapicque) and Présence africaine à l’île Maurice (1956) (African Presence in Mauritius), and three poems: Terre en Feu (1955) (Earth on Fire), Les Arbres Volent et les Oiseaux Tombent (1957) (Trees Fly and Birds fall) and Sega de Liberté (1959) (Sega of Freedom). His Présence Africaine à l’Île Maurice was republished in Sève, a Mauritian publication, in 1958.

Many of his works were published privately, very often for fear of reprisal by the authorities, and circulated among friends in Mauritius and abroad. His long political poem Les Amis du Peuple Veillent (1965 and1968) (The Friends of the People are Watching) is a good example. It saw the riots and the resulting state of emergency as a scheme by the colonial power to quell the voice of the people and surreptitiously annex part of the Mauritian islands before independence, for their oil deposits.