Basel-based author Martin R. Dean (born in 1955) has Swiss-Trinidadian roots. His 2003 novel “Meine Väter” (My fathers) deals with the West Indian past of both his father and stepfather. In “Tabak und Schokolade” (Tobacco and chocolate), Dean now focuses on his Swiss mother Erna, who, like Dean, was born in the canton of Aargau. Erna met Ralph, the writer’s father, in London at the age of 18. Ralph came from Trinidad. Erna and Ralph moved to the Caribbean island following Martin’s birth. But domestic bliss proved short-lived. Mother and son returned to Switzerland in 1960. A young Trinidadian doctor – Dean’s stepfather – soon joined them in Switzerland.
“Tabak und Schokolade” is an autobiographical work that sees Dean explore three distinct elements in his personal jigsaw: his mother, his childhood, and the origins and history of his family. With old black-and-white photos providing him with clues about those years in Trinidad, Dean visits the island himself to discover a sizeable family tree. The author grew up in Aargau – in an era when Switzerland became an increasingly reluctant host of Italian guest workers.
Dean not only uncovers big family trees on both sides of the Atlantic, but also comes across varied colonial connections that heavily influenced his own life. Dean’s grandmother immigrated to Switzerland from Rügen in Germany. She strove to maintain medium-class decorum in Aargau, keeping well away from the Italian migrants who worked in the local cigar factories. Meanwhile, Dean learns that his father Ralph was the offspring of two rival families in Trinidad – the Sinanans and the Ramkeesoons. Ralph’s ancestors were originally from India and came to Trinidad to work on the plantations. Although Trinidad’s ethnic Indian population has long been part of the island’s fabric, Dean senses that the stigma of colonialism remains below the surface. He puts the violence perpetrated by his biological father down to being that of a “person who had no moral compass in a society robbed of its traditions”.
Dean has always been particularly alert to racial discrimination and xenophobia, which he himself experienced as the child of a black father. “Tabak und Schokolade” is a lucid and cleverly crafted personal account of his own family experience within the colonial paradigm.
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