Waiting for the Waters to Rise Read online

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  A mesmerizing novel from the winner of the Alternative Nobel Prize in Literature

  Babakar is a doctor living alone, with only the memories of his African childhood. In his dreams, he receives visits from his blue-eyed mother and his ex-lover Azelia, both now gone, as are the hopes and aspirations he’s carried with him since his arrival in Guadeloupe. Until, one day, the child Anaïs comes into his life, forcing him to abandon his solitude. Anaïs’s Haitian mother died in childbirth, leaving her daughter destitute—now Babakar is all she has, and he wants to offer this little girl a future. Together they fly to Haiti, a beautiful, mysterious island plagued by violence, government corruption, and rebellion. Once there, Babakar and his two friends, the Haitian Movar and the Palestinian Fouad, three different identities looking for a more compassionate world, begin a desperate search for Anaïs’s family.

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  Praise for Maryse Condé:

  “She describes the ravages of colonialism and the post-colonial chaos in a language which is both precise and overwhelming. In her stories the dead live close to the living in a world where gender, race, and class are constantly turned over in new constellations.”

  ANN PÅLSSON, Jury, New Academy Prize in Literature

  “Condé is a born storyteller.”

  Publishers Weekly

  “Maryse Condé is a treasure of world literature, writing from the center of the African diaspora with brilliance and a profound understanding of all humanity.”

  RUSSELL BANKS

  “Maryse Condé is the grande dame of Caribbean literature.”

  NCRV Gids

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  Praise for Waiting for the Waters to Rise:

  “Maryse Condé has lost nothing of her inimitable style, nor of her talent for painting strong and true characters.”

  Le Monde

  “Maryse Condé has that remarkable talent of illuminating characters who are immersed in shadows.”

  Brune Magazine

  “As always, Condé here delivers a sublime novel, mesmerizing, traversed by the destiny of three characters between Africa, the Antilles, and Haiti.”

  Miss Ébène

  “A poignant and discreet story, with endearing characters.”

  Lire

  “A map of anguishes and hopes, written in a sensual and melodic language.”

  Croire Aujourd’hui

  “An enthralling novel, traversed by the destinies of three people, three men linked by an unbeatable friendship, who struggle to break free of their past.”

  La Gazette

  “A dense book, a novel with complex layers, a beautiful lesson of humanity in a hostile world.”

  L’Avenir

  “A novel with multiple twists, but always clear, at the end of which the author leaves us knocked out.”

  Femme Actuelle

  “The author Maryse Condé reveals, once again, her talent as a storyteller à la Selma Lagerlof. She knows how to give body and soul to those caught in the whirlwinds of a merciless history that often surpasses and sometimes destroys them.”

  FESTIVAL DU LIVRE

  “A translucent novel about the need to make one’s destiny intelligible, even while being stateless, an immigrant, exiled, rejected.”

  Gens de la Caraïbe

  “A text of great poetry, and a deep exoticism in which we find traces of Jacques Roumain or Jacques Stéphen Alexis.”

  Sens Critique

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  Praise for The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana:

  “Beating in the novel’s heart is orality, carrying with it the breath of histories, literatures and languages of Africa and the Caribbean … The truth is not only murky and complex, it is often elusive. All we have is interpretation.”

  Irish Times

  “The turbulent narrative unfolds in a deceptively relaxed manner; incidents happen with the abrupt motivelessness of fairytale, but the novel is all the more powerful for those effects.”

  Sunday Times

  “The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana is a rollicking, rumbustious and slyly mischievous Candide for our times.”

  MAYA JAGGI, The Guardian

  “Condé is at her signature best: offering complex, polyphonic and ultimately shattering stories whose provocations linger long after the final pages. The book is a reflection on the dangers of binary thinking … One is never on steady ground with Condé; she is not an ideologue, and hers is not the kind of liberal, safe, down-the-line morality that leaves the reader unimplicated.”

  JUSTIN TORRES, New York Times

  “The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana is a searing literary portrait of the exploitation of immigrants, the corruption of governments, and the powerful emergence of radicalism, with astute commentary on how these elements breed trauma, generation after generation.”

  Foreword Reviews

  “Set during the Charlie Hebdo attacks, this is a fast-paced saga that reveals a seldom-addressed period of African history. Condé’s writing is both lyrical and textured, and showcases her tremendous talents.”

  Booklist

  “Condé’s scope is expansive: cosmic, global, and deeply personal. The result is a story from the perspective of the Global South that enthralls as it explores the urgent economic and cultural contradictions of post-colonialism, globalization, class, and alienation.”

  Arts Fuse

  “An exploration of contemporary chaos.”

  France-Amérique

  “Condé has a gift for storytelling and an unswerving focus on her characters, combined with a mordant sense of humor.”

  New York Times Book Review

  “What an astounding novel. Never have I read anything so wild and loving, so tender and ruthless. Condé is one of our greatest writers, a literary sorcerer, but here she has outdone even herself, summoned a storm from out of the world’s troubled heart. Ivan and Ivana, in their love, in their Attic fates, mirror our species’ terrible brokenness and its improbable grace.”

  JUNOT DÍAZ

  “The breadth, depth, and power of Maryse Condé’s majestic work are exceptionally remarkable. The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana is a superb addition to this incomparable oeuvre, and is one of Condé’s most timely, virtuoso, and breathtaking novels. ”

  EDWIDGE DANTICAT

  “Brilliantly imagined, Maryse Condé’s new novel presents a dual bildungsroman of twins born into poverty in the African diaspora and follows their global travels to its shocking ending. Once again, Condé transmutes contemporary political traumas into a mesmerizing family fable.”

  HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR.

  “Maryse Condé offers us with The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana yet another ambitious, continent-crossing whirlwind of a literary journey. The marvelous siblings at the heart of her tale are inspiring and unsettling in equal measure, richly drawn incarnations of the contemporary postcolonial individual in perpetual geographic and cultural movement. It is a remarkable story from start to finish.”

  KAIAMA L. GLOVER

  “Maryse Condé’s prodigious fictional universes are founded on a radical and generative disregard for boundaries based on geography, religion, history, race, and gender. In The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana, the most intimate human relationships acquire meaning only on the scale of the world-historical, and as we follow the twins in their fated journey from the Caribbean to Africa and Europe, we learn about love, happiness, calamity, and, at last, the survival of hope.”

 
ANGELA Y. DAVIS

  “With this story of a young man from Guadeloupe who finds himself persuaded by the pull of jihad, Condé has written one of her most impressive novels to date, one that seamlessly resonates with the problems of our time.”

  Le Monde

  “Condé’s latest novel is a beautiful and dramatic story with its origins in the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Masterly.”

  Afrique Magazine

  “Maryse Condé addresses very contemporary issues in her latest novel: racism, jihadi terrorism, political corruption and violence, economic inequality in Guadeloupe and metropolitan France, globalization and immigration.”

  World Literature Today

  “This new novel, written in an almost exuberant style, contains many typical Condé elements, in particular the mix of a small family with global events, and the nuances of existing images.”

  De Volkskrant

  “Told by a charming, lively third-person narrator, the novel evokes its various settings beautifully and takes a penetrating, wide-ranging look at the effects of racism, colonialism, and inequality.”

  Bookriot

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  Praise for Segu:

  “Condé’s story is rich and colorful and glorious. It sprawls over continents and centuries to find its way into the reader’s heart.”

  MAYA ANGELOU

  “Exotic, richly textured and detailed, this narrative, alternating between the lives of various characters, illuminates magnificently a little-known historical period. Virtually every page glitters with nuggets of cultural fascination.”

  Los Angeles Times

  “The most significant novel about black Africa published in many a year … A wondrous novel about a period of African history few other writers have addressed. Much of the novel’s radiance comes from the lush description of a traditional life that is both exotic and violent.”

  New York Times Book Review

  “With the dazzling storytelling skills of an African griot, Maryse Condé has written a rich, fast-paced saga of a great kingdom during the tumultuous period of the slave trade and the coming of Islam. Segu is history as vivid and immediate as today. It has restored a part of my past that has long been missing.”

  PAULE MARSHALL, author of Daughters

  “Segu is an overwhelming accomplishment. It injects into the density of history characters who are as alive as you and I. Passionate, lusty, greedy, they are in conflict with themselves as well as with God and Mammon. Maryse Condé has done us all a tremendous service by rendering a history so compelling and exciting. Segu is a literary masterpiece I could not put down.”

  LOUISE MERIWETHER

  “A stunning reaffirmation of Africa and its peoples as set down by others whose works have gone unnoticed. Condé not only backs them up, but provides new insights as well. Segu has its own dynamic. It’s a starburst.”

  JOHN A. WILLIAMS

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  Praise for Crossing the Mangrove:

  “Condé writes elegantly in a style that beautifully survives translation from the French. She gives readers a flavor of the French and Creole stew that is the Guadeloupean tongue. In so doing, Condé conveys the many subtle distinctions of color, class, and language that made up this society.”

  Chicago Tribune

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  Praise for Tales from the Heart:

  “Honest, exquisitely measured—inspiring in its reminder of the human spirit’s capacity to endure.”

  New York Times Book Review

  “An astute study of family and place.”

  Washington Post Book World

  “Upon reaching the final page and the start of Condé’s journey to adulthood, readers will regret that this brief, colorful, and lively remembrance has ended.”

  Publishers Weekly

  “A useful look at the psychological consequences of intolerance.”

  Kirkus Reviews

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  Praise for Windward Heights:

  “Condé is a masterly storyteller who also proves deft at reinterpreting other people’s stories, as she shows here with this energetic reimagining of Wuthering Heights set in Cuba and Guadeloupe at the turn of the century.”

  New York Times Book Review

  “Condé gives Brontë a cultural context—a fine and unique accomplishment.”

  Washington Post

  “Through Condé’s transformation of the tragedy in Wuthering Heights, she creates a narrative that seduces, evokes, and makes us think about the kinds of emotions that have moved human beings throughout our existence.”

  Chicago Tribune

  “Exotic and eloquent. Condé takes Emily Brontë’s cold-climate classic on obsessive love and makes it hot and lush.”

  USA Today

  “A confident and incisive Caribbeanization of a European master-text by a master novelist of African descent.”

  Village Voice

  “The author weaves in the history of the region along with themes of passionate love, color prejudice, oppression, and social unrest to create an engaging and well-written book that is difficult to put down.”

  Multicultural Review

  “Condé has given readers an astonishing new way in which to contemplate our ancestral past.”

  Black Issues Book Review

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  MARYSE CONDÉ was born in Guadeloupe in 1937 as the youngest of eight siblings. She earned her MA and PhD in Comparative Literature at Paris-Sorbonne University and went on to have a distinguished academic career, receiving the title of Professor Emerita of French at Columbia University in New York, where she taught and lived for many years. She has also lived in various West African countries, most notably in Mali, where she gained inspiration for her worldwide bestseller Segu, for which she was awarded the African Literature Prize and several other respected French awards. Condé was awarded the 2018 New Academy Prize (or “Alternative Nobel”) in Literature for her oeuvre. She also received the Grand-Croix de l’ordre national du Mérite from President Emmanuel Macron in 2020. Her latest novel, The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana, is also available in English from World Editions.

  RICHARD PHILCOX is Maryse Condé’s husband and translator. He has also published new translations of Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin, White Masks. He has taught translation on various American campuses and won grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts for the translation of Condé’s works.

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  AUTHOR

  “For the Francophone islands of the Caribbean, the image of Haiti is double-edged: its poverty is used as a foil serving as a deterrent for any thought of independence or emancipation, and yet it is the birthplace of Toussaint Louverture and the first country to have abolished slavery and given its people their freedom. I wanted to portray these two images and show, despite its deprivation and failures, how Haiti inspired my energy and determination as a writer.”

  TRANSLATOR

  “Translating Waiting for the Waters to Rise brought back fond memories of Haiti as well as of our journey down the Niger River in Mali. Many of the places and people mentioned in the book are actual places we visited together as well as people we met. For example, I can vividly remember the boat trip on the General Soumaré from Bamako to Gao via Timbuktu as well as the drive to Cap-Haitien and Kenscoff outside Port-au-Prince. Seeing the same sights as the author and being familiar with the culture of Mali and Haiti made the translation less daunting in light of the ominous title.”

  PUBLISHER

  “Maryse Condé is one of the greatest storytellers of all time, and is skilled at bringing her characters to life in sensual and melodic language. I fell in love with her work upon reading her epic novel Segu and am extremely happy to be allowed to publish Waiting for the Waters to Rise. This i
s an impressive novel, full of tenderness, hope, and solidarity.”

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  MARYSE CONDÉ

  Waiting for the Waters to Rise

  Translated from the French

  by Richard Philcox

  WORLD EDITIONS

  New York, London, Amsterdam

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  Published in the USA in 2021 by World Editions LLC, New York

  Published in the UK in 2021 by World Editions Ltd., London

  World Editions

  New York/London/Amsterdam

  Copyright © Editions Jean-Claude Lattès, 2010

  English translation copyright © Richard Philcox, 2021

  Author portrait © P. Matsas Leemage/Hollandse Hoogte

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The opinions expressed therein are those of the characters and should not be confused with those of the author.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data is available

  ISBN Trade paperback 978-1-64286-073-3

  ISBN E-book 978-1-64286-083-2

  First published as En attendant la montée des eaux in France in 2010 by JC Lattès

  This book has been selected to receive financial assistance from English PEN’s PEN Translates programme, supported by Arts Council England. English PEN exists to promote literature and our understanding of it, to uphold writers’ freedoms around the world, to campaign against the persecution and imprisonment of writers for stating their views, and to promote the friendly co-operation of writers and the free exchange of ideas. www.englishpen.org

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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