Romans of Seychelles

Romans Seselwa

Introduction

Romans is derived from the French word ‘romance’. Etymologically, romance comes from Anglo-Norman and Old French “romanz”, which means a story of chivalry and love. It means romantic stories with chivalrous feats of heroes and knights comprising stories and legends of duty, courage, boldness, battles, and rescues of damsels in distress.

In this post, and others to follow, we will use the Seychellois creole word ‘romans’ and not the French ‘romance’. The word “romance” also refers to romantic love.

Acknowledgements

This page is dedicated to a few persons whom I love so much and who have greatly contributed to my appreciation of our Romans Seselwa:

Tante Margot (Marguerite Lablache) who took care of me when dad passed away. ‘Le Petit Mousse’ was one of her favourite romans. She would sing it all the time when inspecting her vegetable garden and vanilla plantation.

Tante Renée (Renée Barallon), who was the Head Mistress at St Joseph School, Grand’Anse Praslin, who had a large collection of romans and children songs. She taught us a few of the romans when I was a pupil at the school.

Manman Merna Vidot of Takamaka, for the handwritten manuscript containing over 200 romans, that she kindly gave me about 20 years ago. The manuscript is handwritten, and many pages were stuck together with sticky tape. This, unfortunately, over the years, have resulted the deterioration of the document rendering some of the romans illegible.

Part of the Manuscript of Romans from Manman Merna Vidot

Marie-Thérese Mondon ( Célice’s mum) who kindly gave me access to her small collection of hand-written romans and who would loved to sing ‘Vole la Colombe’ . I will cherish her songs for as long as I live.

Nenn Gaté- who was our neighbour when we lived at Grand’Anse Praslin. She used to organise moutya sessions every Saturday evening in the yard in front of her house. Her favourite romans was ‘Le Regret de la Vie’.

I would also like to extend a heartfelt thank you to everybody who have kindly donated their collection of romans. I will gradually compile all of them in this page with the hope that one day I can produce an ebooklet version for all to freely access.

Your contribution is welcomed

Finally, I look forward to any contribution that would assist in making this collection of romans as accurate and comprehensive as possible.

Your contribitions can be in different ways:

You can contribute songs that have been fully edited; part of a song and requesting other participants to complete; unedited songs that require editing and requesting the editing. Your contribution may also be in the actual editing of the songs. As we all know, all the songs are in French and, despite the fact that most of us can speak French, it is not an easy language to write, especially in song format.

Before you access the list of Romans please read the two posts below so that you will get a broader understanding of the songs:

Romans in Seychelles

The Themes of the Romans Seselwa

List of Romans Seselwa

Please click on the song title of the romans to access the full song. Some songs are not linked yet. This will happen progressively. This list will also gradually expand.