Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? (2004)
by Maryse Conde

The deeply prolific and widely celebrated author of such books as "Segu" and "Tales from the Heart," Maryse Conde returns with an unforgettable new novel, "Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat?" Inspired by a tragedy in the late twentieth century, Conde sets this fiction in the late nineteenth century with her characteristic blend of magical realism and fantasy. Conde lyrically, hauntingly imagines Celanire: a woman who was mutilated at birth and left for dead. Mysterious, seductive, and disarming, she is driven to uncover the truth of her past at any cost. On one hand, Celanire appears to be a saint; she is a tireless worker who has turned numerous neglected institutions into vibrant schools for motherless children. But she is also a woman apprehended by demons, as death and misfortune seem to follow in her wake. "Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat?" follows both her triumphs and her trials as this survivor becomes a beautiful and powerful woman who travels from Guadeloupe to West Africa to Peru in order to solve the mysteries of her past and avenge the crimes committed against her.This beautifully rendered story, translated by Richard Philcox from the French edition, is sure to be considered the most dazzling addition to Conde’s brilliant body of work.