Khal Torabully, a francophone writer from Mauritius, is an essayist, film director, and semiologist. Author of over twenty-five books, he has given voice to indentured workers who were brought by ship from China and India to work the sugarcane fields in the years after slavery was abolished. These workers either remained in the tiny island nation or were transported to other former British and French colonies. Torabully has re-visioned, re-imagined, and redefined the derogatory term coolie to emphasize the richness of transcultural lives. He coined coolitude in much the same way that Aimé Césaire coined negritude. (updated 10/2018)