Novel
Hadriana in All My Dreams
Hadriana dans tous mes rêves
René Depestre · 1988
Synopsis
In Jacmel, during the carnival of January 1938, a young Frenchwoman, Hadriana Siloé, marries the Haitian Hector Danoze. In the church, at the moment of saying yes, she collapses, struck down by death. She is waked and buried; but a few days later her body has vanished from the tomb, and zombification is suspected. Thirty years later, Patrick Altamont, a witness of those days, is still trying to find out who zombified her, and why.
Context
The novel appeared from Gallimard on 11 March 1988. It is placed alongside the marvellous real of Alejo Carpentier and Jacques Stephen Alexis, and its structure is seen in carnival and its symbolic functions. It is composed in three movements, and Jacmel, the town of the author's childhood, is its setting. Kaiama L. Glover translated it into English in 2017, from Akashic, under the title Hadriana in All My Dreams.
Who it is for
A novel in French, which can also be read in English; voodoo and the belief in zombies form its backbone.
Prizes and reception
Prix Renaudot in 1988, and awarded the same year by the Société des gens de lettres and by the Royal Academy of Belgium.