Fabulous Fiction Firsts #640 Love in Any Language

Mon, 06/05/2017 - 9:33pm by muffy

Winner of the prestigious Prix Renaudot in 1988 and available for the first time in English (translated from the French by Kaiama L. Glover), Hadriana in All My Dreams * * * by Rene Depestre, combines magic, fantasy, eroticism, and delirious humor to explore universal questions of race and sexuality.

Set in the coastal town of Jacmel (the author's hometown) during the carnival season of 1938, when Hadriana Siloé, a sensuous pale-skinned Creole woman, collapses at her wedding altar. Two days later, when her corpse goes missing from her grave, zombification is suspected and it is feared that she had earlier taken a mysterious potion. Before we could hear directly from Hadriana herself, this traumatic event is observed from different angles - the locals are convinced a local villain, Balthazar Granchire is to blame, having been turned into an ugly butterfly by his sorcerer father, for his relentless lechery. Patrick, one of Hadriana’s many young admirers, narrates much of the novel, acting as a surrogate for the now-90-year-old Depestre, showing himself throughout to be a true savant on all things zombie.

"The truth of Hadriana’s fate proves more poignant than horrifying, but in Depestre’s hands, this incident is a touchstone of a culture in which distinctions between the empirical and spiritual are obscured, and whose traditional celebrations and beliefs introduce an element of the mythic into the everyday. Eroticism and humor course through his narrative." (Publishers Weekly)

Season of Crimson Blossoms * by writer and journalist Abubaker Adam Ibrahim, won the 2016 NLNG Prize for Literature, one of the world's richest ($100,000) literary prizes. Set in Northern Nigeria, it is the story of an illicit affair between a devout widow and a young gang leader.

55 year-old Binta Zubairu, a devout Muslim, a widow and grandmother met the 25 year-old Hassan Reza, a street gang leader when he scaled her fence and robbed her at knife point. Mysteriously, most of the stolen goods were returned, and when Reza appeared to apologize, the two were overcome by their inexplicable desire and began an illicit romance that brought on disastrous consequences.

"A powerful and compelling debut. The taboo subject of an older woman's sexuality, portrayed with courage, skill and delicacy, is explored in the context of the criminal underworld and the corrupt politics that exploits it. This is a novel to be savoured. " ~ Zoe Wicomb

* * * = 3 starred reviews

* = starred review