Rapa Nui, the "Isla de Pascua" annexed by Chile in 1888, the Easter Island, the loneliest island in the world is more than 3000 nautical miles away from the nearest coast in the Pacific. The remoteness itself puts the island, according to Glissant, "above all others".

Sylvie Glissant, the author's wife, went on the trip to carry out the necessary field studies. Glissant's physical condition did not allow him to travel long distances, so he transferred her impressions (photos, drawings, sound documents) remotely into the “disorder of literature”. Additionally, it is based on live conversations between residents of the island and the poet in his study in Paris. Oral discourse is crucial for Glissants practice, in this case via Skype. 

In "La Terre magnétique. Les errances de Rapa Nui, l'île de Pâques", Édouard Glissant circles around the power center of the island in order to capture the residents' feeling of being. For Glissant, it is fed by an extraordinary feeling for magnetism, for the movements from the depths of the sea and the sky.

About the author:

Édouard Glissant was born on the Caribbean island of Martinique in 1928. In 1946 he came to Paris on a scholarship to study history, literature, ethnology and philosophy. He soon joined artistic and literary circles and was involved in anti-colonialist movements. In 1958 he was awarded the prestigious Prix Renaudot for his novel "La Lézarde". With his numerous novels, essay and poetry volumes, he became a chronicler of Antillean history and an ethnologist of the post-colonial world. He was the most important author of the French-speaking Caribbean and an intellectual mastermind of poetics and philosophy of world relations and diversity.