Macadam Dreams

A cyclone inexorably sweeps Eliette into her past in this novel about the wayward violence of love and nature in Guadeloupe. In Macadam Dreams the celebrated Creole writer Gis le Pineau cunningly unveils the two cataclysms that have devastated Eliette's life: first, the cyclone of 1928, when she was only eight years old, and now, Hurricane Hugo, whose destruction shatters the elaborate defenses the old woman has built around the sorrows and madness of her life in the small, accursed town of Savane Mulet. As Hugo unleashes its fury, a final blow frees Eliette's repressed memories of madness, isolation, and loss, and of the grievous failure of a prophecy that promised her a child. A story of self-discovery, Macadam Dreams speaks eloquently of the violence and poverty endured by women of this island nation--violence every bit as devastating, and seemingly inescapable, as the perpetually returning cyclone. Viewed by many as a canonical author in the Creole movement in Francophone literature, Pineau has created an extraordinary work that is recognized as a masterpiece of French-Caribbean literature.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Bison Books
Published: 09/01/2003
ISBN: 9780803287730
Pages: 215
Weight: 0.61lbs
Size: 8.78h x 5.48w x 0.47d

Review Citations: Booklist 09/01/2003 pg. 60
Multicultural Review 06/01/2004 pg. 58