Khal Torabully
Khal Torabully is a Mauritian poet. He is a poet, essayist, film director and semiologist. He has won several literary awards, including Lettres-Frontière, Switzerland, Prix du Salon du Livre Insulaire, France and Prix Missives, France.
Khal Torabully
- Born
- 1956 · Port Louis.
- Nationality
- Mauritius
- Occupation
- writer · poet · linguist
- Fields
- creative and professional writing · linguistics · poetry
- Languages
- French · English
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Khal Torabully is a Mauritian poet. He is a poet, essayist, film director and semiologist. He has won several literary awards, including Lettres-Frontière, Switzerland, Prix du Salon du Livre Insulaire, France and Prix Missives, France.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Note VALÉORINE
Khal Torabully (born 1956) is a linguist, poet and writer and a national of Mauritius. The linguist was born in Port Louis. Khal Torabully is active in creative and professional writing, linguistics and poetry. Languages used include English and French.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 01 October 2026
VALÉORINE
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Khal Torabully. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q1130419 · wikipedia · Khal Torabully
In this article
Background
Background
He coined the word 'coolitude'. Later, he was known as the 'Father of Coolitude'.
Torabully was born in the capital city Port Louis, Mauritius in 1956. His father was a Trinidadian sailor and his mother was a descendant of migrants from India and Malaya. He studied comparative literature at the University of Lyon II from 1976. Later, he did his PhD thesis in semiology of poetics with Michel Cusin. He has authored over 25 books. He indulged in linguistic acrobatics, like wordplay and neologisms, to heighten the seriousness of his themes.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
1956
Khal Torabully born at Port Louis.
Films
• Pic Pic, Nomade d’une île, 1996. • La traboule des vagues, multi broadcast Tele Lyon Metropole. • Malcolm de Chazal, (52'), portrait of an artist, with France Telecom. • Portraits de Mémoire en Gironde, France, 2010. • The Maritime Memory of the Arabs, Oman TV, Chamarel Films, France 2001.
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- “Khal Torabully”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q1130419: Khal Torabully
Reputable secondary · Wikidata
scholarly publication
- Torabully, Khal (1956–), Encyclopedic Dictionary of Diasporic Indian English Writing, 2025
Scholarly · Crossref registry · 2025
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Visiting Poet: Nancy Naomi Carlson on Khal Torabully. Poetry Society of America.
- 2.Potomitan - Khal Torabully: The Father of Coolitude (Mauritius). www.potomitan.info.
- 3.From Négritude to Coolitude: The Visionary Poetry of Khal Torabully - Wed, 03/23/2022 Bennington College. www.bennington.edu.
- 4.Three Poems by Khal Torabully. World Literature Today.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
scholarly publication
Torabully, Khal (1956–), Encyclopedic Dictionary of Diasporic Indian English Writing, 2025Crossref registry
Institutional witnessreference work
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 18 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Books
39,529 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Khady KoitaAuthor
- Khagendra ThakurAuthor
- Khairi al-HindawiAuthor
- Khakhyab DorjeAuthor
- Khaled KhalifaAuthor
- Khaled MattawaAuthor
- Khaled NasrahAuthor
- Khaleda Adib ChowdhuryAuthor
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Khal Torabully?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.