The Reception of Palace of the Peacock in Paris

Le Palazs du Paon, the French version of Palace of the Peacock, was published in Paris by Les Editions des Autres in May 1979. With the help of Hena Maes-Jelinek and Claude Vercey, Jean-Pierre Durix, now a professor of English literature at the University of Dijon, completed an accurate and inspired translation and contributed a short preface to the 164-page volume, emphasizing the Guyanese blend of cultures as well as some of the difficulties the reader, unused to 'the destruction of the classical conception of a character as a distinct and separate entity', was likely to encounter. He ended on the novel's final vision: 'The windows of the place are no longer material eyes with their limited perception. They have become those of the peacock with their innumerable variations, perspectives of otherness that open onto the infinite.'