I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem (CARAF Books: Caribbean and African Literature Translated from French) - Softcover

Maryse Condé

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813927676 ISBN 13: 9780813927671

Publisher: University of Virginia Press, 2009

Synopsis

This wild and entertaining novel expands on the true story of the West Indian slave Tituba, who was accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, arrested in 1692, and forgotten in jail until the general amnesty for witches two years later. Maryse Condé brings Tituba out of historical silence and creates for her a fictional childhood, adolescence, and old age. She turns her into what she calls "a sort of female hero, an epic heroine, like the legendary ‘Nanny of the maroons,’" who, schooled in the sorcery and magical ritual of obeah, is arrested for healing members of the family that owns her.

CARAF Books:Caribbean and African Literature Translated from French

This book has been supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agencY.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

"Stunning...Maryse Conde's imaginative subversion of historical records forms a critque of contemporary American society and its ingrained racism and sexism."
THE BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE
At the age of seven, Tituba watched as her mother was hanged for daring to wound a plantation owner who tried to rape her. She was raised from then on by Mama Yaya, a gifted woman who shared with her the secrets of healing and magic. But it was Tituba's love of the slave John Indian that led her from safety into slavery, and the bitter, vengeful religion practiced by the good citizens of Salem, Massachusetts. Though protected by the spirits, Tituba could not escape the lies and accusations of that hysterical time.
As history and fantasy merge, Maryse Conde, acclaimed author of TREE OF LIFE and SEGU, creates the richly imagined life of a fascinating woman.

About the Author:

Originally from Guadeloupe, Maryse Condé is Professor Emerita of French and Romance Philology at Columbia University. She is the author of numerous novels, including Heremakhonon, Segu, Crossing the Mangrove, Tales from the Heart, Who Slashed Celanire's Throat?(winner of the 2005 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for fiction), and The Story of the Cannibal Woman. She now divides her time between New York and Paris. Angela Y. Davis is Professor of History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Ann Armstrong Scarboro is president of Mosaic Media and producer, with Susan Wilcox of Full Duck Productions, of the series Ethnic Expressions from the Mosaic of the Americas. Richard Philcox is the English-language translator of many of Condé’s novels.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0813927676
• ISBN 13: 9780813927671
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240