Anne Cheynet

Anne-Marie Thérèse Fontaine (23 August 1938 – 23 May 2025), known by her pen name Anne Cheynet, was a French author in Réunion. Her 1977 work Les Muselés [fr] is considered a significant contribution to Réunionnais literature, as the first novel to be formally labeled as "Réunionnais."^[1]

Anne Cheynet
Born	(1938-08-23)23 August 1938 Saint-Denis, Réunion
Died	23 May 2025(2025-05-23) (aged 86)
Occupation	Author

Life and career

Anne-Marie Thérèse Fontaine was born in Saint-Denis, Réunion, in 1938, and spent her childhood in the city's Saint-François neighborhood.^[2] She traveled to Aix-en-Provence to study in 1956, remaining abroad until 1963.^[3]

Back on the island, she worked as a secondary school teacher before getting involved in politics. She later returned to the classroom as a preschool teacher.^[3]

She published her first book, the poetry collection Matanans et Langoutis, in 1972, followed by her best-known work, the novel Les Muselés, which is considered the first work billed as a "Réunionnais novel."^[1][2] The novel, which has an activist slant, focuses on the lives of the poor in Réunion.^[4] Cheynet, who was from a poor white family, drew on her experiences of discrimination during the island's colonial era.^[2]

Anne Cheynet subsequently published several other books, including the poetry collection Ter tout' kouler and the short story collection Rivages maouls.^[3] In 2022, she released a bilingual story collection illustrated by Claire Ruiz, La clé dans zot poche: Histoires semées depuis le Grand Sentier.^[5]

Between 2001 and 2004, she produced three CDs of oral storytelling.^[3]

She wrote in both French and Creole.^[3]

Cheynet died on 23 May 2025, at the age of 86.^[6][7]

Selected works

• Matanans et Langoutis (poetry), 1972
• Les Muselés (novel), L'Harmattan, 1977
• Ter tout' kouler : Poème pour la terre multicolore (poetry), vol. 1, Ravine des Sables, ADMV, 1992
• Rivages maouls : histoires d'Annabelle (autobiographical), vol. 1, Océan, 1994
• La clé dans zot poche: Histoires semées depuis le Grand Sentier (stories), Éditions Poisson Rouge, 2022