Why is literature important?
1. Because it provides people with healthy leisure;
2. Because it provides an escape route from our dreary existence;
3. Because it provides learning and teaching material to support our efforts to develop national and international literacy skills;
4. Because it tickles the imagination and makes the mind more robust;
5. Because it helps us to feed on the milk of human kindness and grow sympathy and empathy;
6. Because it refines our senses and make us more human;
7. Because it helps us to refine our sense of intellectual, artistic and spiritual beauty;
8. Because, because, because…

Most importantly, it is a means to make language become a powerful instrument for the expression of thought, experience and emotions. In his Defence Of Poetry the English poet, P. B. Shelley wrote, inter alia, that poets are the authors of language. This poetic intuition has since been validated by linguists and literary experts such as Terry Eagleton. Creative writing is the diamondcutting exercise which transforms a piece of rough stone into a precious stone. Great writers like Chaucer, Shakespeare, Rabelais, Dante Alighieri and Martin Luther are the founding fathers of English, French, Italian and German respectively. It is now high time for our academics to research the part played by creative writing in the growth of an oral vernacular into a vibrant standard language in Mauritius and Rodrigues. Foreign literature can help the growth of our literature and viceversa. Translation (both semantic and communicative) is one of humanity’s instruments of sharing and exchange, a cross-border path to friendship and solidarity.

Now enjoy a piece of canon literature
by W. Blake:

LONDON
I wander through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
A mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,
In every infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear.
How the chimney-sweeper’s cry
Every blackening church appals,
And the hapless soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.
But most, through midnight streets
I hear

How the youthful harlot’s curse
Blasts the new-born infant’s tear,
And blights with plagues the
marriage hearse.

Kifer literatir li enportan?
1. Parski li donn dimoun enn pastan bon pou lespri ek lavi;
2. Parski li ed nou bliye lavi rann ki nou pe viv;
3. Parski li donn nou materyo pedagozik ki nou bizen pou devlop konesans lir ek ekrir dan nou lang ek dan lang etranzer;
4. Parski li giji nou limazinasion e fer nou lespri vinn pli solid;
5. Parski li permet nou bwar dile limanite ki ed nou konpran lezot e devlop solidarite ek partaz;
6. Parski li rafinn nou bann sans e sa fer nou vinn ankor plis imen;
7. Parski li ed nou rafinn nou kapasite reflesi, apresie ek konpran bote vizib ek envizib;
8. Parski, parski, parski…

Me plis enportan ki tou, literatir se nou zouti pou fer nou lang vinn enn enstriman mari for pou dir nou panse, nou experyans ek nou emosion. Dan so liv “Defence Of Poetry” poet Angle P. B. Shelley ti ekrir, parmi lezot zafer, ki bann poet zot bann kreater langaz. Sa entwision poetic la finn gagn rekonesans siyans grasa bann lengwis ek exper dan literatir kouma Terry Eagleton.

Lekritir literer li kouma travay ki kouper diaman fer kan zot tay enn bout ros brit e fer li vinn enn pier presie. Bann gran ekriven kouma Chaucer, Shakespeare, Rabelais, Dante Alighieri ek Martin Luther zot bann papa-fondater lang Angle, Franse, Italien ek Alman dan sa lord la. Ler finn arrive pou ki bann akademik etidie rol ki lekritir literer finn zwe dan transformasion enn lang oral ki finn vinn enn lang standar mari serye dan Pei Moris ek dan Rodrig. Literatir lezot pei kapav ed nou literatir kouma nou literatir kapav ed literatir lezot pei. Tradixion semantic ek kominikatif se enn zouti limanite pou partaz ek esanz, enn sime san frontier ver lamitie ek solidarite.

Aster lir version Morisien poem Blake
par D. V

PORLWI
Ler mo mars lor lari kapital
Akote larivier liberal,
Mo trouv partou mem sikatris:
Tras febles ek tras tristes.

Dan sak lavwa ki mo tande,
Dan lavwa zanfan ki tranble,
Dan sak diskour, dan sak kontra
Menot mantal pe fer fraka.

Zanfan pe fer travo forse,
Fer miray nwar vinn blan Legliz;
Solda vant vid ar soupire
Miray lerwa pentir anrouz.

Dan lari minwi ekout bien!
To pou tann tifi vann lekor
Modi baba so prop leren;
Modi for-for karos lamor.

Ena 250 an desela Blake, enn poet
vizioner, ti denons dega ek ravaz ki system kapitalis ti pe fer
dan Langleter.

Eski version Morisien kapav reponn lapel?