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5/5 🌟

A slim, beautiful, and heartbreaking book about the lasting consequences of slavery and racism. Its short and straightforward pages tell the story of Noemi‘s life, from her birth in a shantytown where she lives with her mother. It depicts their life as workers at a nearby manor, serving a large, wealthy French family, and struggling to break out of the cycle of poverty and inequality. It is a powerful, compelling, and harrowing narrative.

Emotions are vivid in this beautiful novella told in fragments, set in a shantytown in Mauritius. 15-year-old Noemi‘s outrage at her growing awareness of the injustice that has shaped her life: economic disparity & colonial legacy of slavery & white supremacy, her grief, the intensity of her first crush, her solace in the sea. Interspersed with Noemi‘s voice are poems, recipes & the haunting voices of other women from Mauritian history.

All our lives we‘ve walked around them. On silent tiptoes. Reverently. Serving them. Waiting on them. We‘re taught never to inconvenience them. They walk differently—with privilege. A sense of entitlement only reserved for the whites.
Should they happen to walk in our direction, we quickly step back and let them go first. If we‘re waiting in a queue, they won‘t stand in line like the rest of us. Certainement pas! They‘ll always be served first.

The past is your present, but don‘t let the past be your future.

The history we are taught is not about anyone in my family. Even in our meagre school library, the books imported from Europe are full of foreign faces having adventures in faraway places. I never see myself in those stories. Because people like me aren‘t good enough to be in books. Our lives aren‘t worth writing about.

Managed to get my hands on a copy of La mémoire délavée, the latest Appanah about her family history, pieced together from oral testimonies and the few written records available. In the 19th century, her 3 times great-grandparents emigrated to #Mauritius from #India (Andhra Pradesh) as indentured labourers. Fascinating and as usual, well-written.

Set against the beautiful backdrop of Mauritius, the book exposes the country‘s history of white privilege. A young girl, raised in the slums quits school to help her mother who works as a servant for a wealthy, white family. She feels trapped in the same lives as her ancestors. This book explores racism, colonialism and heartbreak.. so atmospheric and compelling, I read this novella in just one evening!

This was such a strange book. Very confusing and hard to describe. It was translated from French but aside from that there were no quotation marks around the dialogue and not even separate paragraphs it was just one big jumble of words and actions, not a lot of development. I found this in a Little Free Library and am happy to put it in another one. Maybe this book is for someone but not for me. Cool over though 😎

#AlphabetGame @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
Letter E

A poetic, uncompromising story about four young people growing up poor in Port Louis, Mauritius. The underbelly of a seemingly idyllic tourist paradise. Translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman.

Tropic of Violence explores life, death, immigration, racism, colonialism, and more on the small island of French-controlled Mayotte. Appanah packs a lot into a few pages, but it doesn‘t feel cramped or forced. I thought this was quite good.

#ReadingAfrica2022 #Mauritius (author from)