"In the days of slavery in the sugar isles, there was an old negro without fuss, no big jump, no show manners. He was a lover of silence, a taster of solitude. He was a mineral of immobile patiences. An inexhaustible bamboo. It was said to be rough like a southern land or like the bark of a tree which has passed a thousand years. Yet the Word suggests that it suddenly burst into flames with a fine din of This is how the story of this old man slave, his Master-béké and the hound who was launched after him has come down to me. A story with long lines of variant stories, in songs in the Creole language, in games of French language and dreamed parlors. Only proliferating memories could follow their entanglements. Here, concerned about my words, I could only go in a light rhythm floating on their music ... "Patrick Chamoiseau.