The Scorpion-Fish

On an unnamed Island that can only be Ceylon, the traveller checks into his 117th rented room, abandoned by his lover, poor and feverish. A book on Indian insects deepens his morbid fascination with the crawling inhabitants of his room - 'a pretty world of killers' - barely distinguishable from the insect-like habitués of the local café, the charlatans and fake exorcists, the indolent landowners, merchants and priests. In this exhausted state, he grows antennae that are 'tensed between the real and the occult'. The distinction between fact and fiction is blurred, but in this world of the imagination truths are sometimes crystal clear. A long-dead, levitating priest and the beautiful but deadly scorpion-fish, symbol of Bouvier's ambivalent relationship with the Island, are but two of the spectres which eventually lose their hold on the author, releasing him back to life. Translated by Robyn Marsack, Winner of the Scott Moncrieff Prize 1988