Guadeloupe (France) / All works
Novel
Lone Sun
L'Isolé soleil
Daniel Maximin · 1981
Synopsis
Marie-Gabriel, a young orphaned Guadeloupean woman who dreams of being a poet, sets out in search of her roots by writing, settled among the branches of the mango tree on the family property. Her manuscripts in progress, documents and the letters she exchanges with Adrien bring back to life five generations of rebel fathers and heroic mothers, from slavery and the revolts that wrested abolition up to the upheavals of the contemporary period.
Context
The novel came out from Seuil in 1981 and was reissued in paperback in the Points series in 1987 and then in 2001. Aimé Césaire hailed it: “The whole of Antillean history is there.” Made up of narratives, legends, chronicles and music more than of a continuous plot, it opens a trilogy continued by the author's following novels. It appeared in English in 1989 under the title Lone Sun, from the University of Virginia Press, in a series of Caribbean and African literatures translated from French.
Who it is for
For crossing the history of Guadeloupe through literature, with a heroine who seeks herself in her ancestors.
Prizes and reception
Hailed by Aimé Césaire on its publication, then translated in the United States eight years later.
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