The Infamous Rosalie (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780803240261)

Lisette, a Saint-Domingue-born Creole slave and daughter of an African-born bossale, has inherited not only the condition of slavery but the traumatic memory of the Middle Passage as well. The stories told to her by her grandmother and godmother, including the horrific voyage aboard the infamous slave ship Rosalie, have become part of her own story, the one she tells in this haunting novel by the acclaimed Haitian writer ﾉvelyne Trouillot.

Inspired by the colonial tale of an African midwife who kept a cord of some seventy knots, each one marking a child she had killed at birth, the novel transports us back to Saint-Domingue, before it became Haiti. The year is 1750, and a rash of poisonings is sowing fear among the plantation masters, already unsettled by the unrest caused by Makandal, the legendary Maroon leader. Through this tumultuous time, Lisette struggles to maintain her dignity and to imagine a future for her unborn child. In telling Lisette's story, Trouillot gives the revolution that will soon rock the island a human face and at long last sheds light on the invisible women and men of Haitian history.

The original French edition of Rosalie l'inf穃e received the Prix Soroptimist de la romanci鑽e francophone, honoring a novel written by a woman from a French-speaking country which showcases the cultural and literary diversity of the French-speaking world.


Author: ﾉvelyne Trouillot
ISBN-10: 0803240260
ISBN-13: 9780803240261
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Language: English
Published: 10/01/2013
Pages: 152
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.36lbs
Size: 8.02h x 5.07w x 0.41d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 09/15/2013 pg. 66
Library Journal 10/01/2014 pg. 44