About this Book

In this powerful and moving novel, Myriam Warner-Vieyra sensitively
portrays the complexities of cross-cultural relationships and, in
particular, the female predicament. When Helene, a self-reliant career
woman, is packing her belongings for a move and imminent marriage for
which she is reluctant, she unearths a faded old book. It is the diary
of young Juletane, a confused, sheltered West Indian woman struggling to
find herself. Written over three weeks, it records her short life:
childhood in France, marriage to an African student, and an eager return
with him to Africa, the land of her ancestors. It is Juletane’s diary
that brings her and Helene together.
Juletane does not fit into her husband’s traditional African family,
especially the Muslim cultural demands of polygamy. Full of gentle
ironies, Juletane is a story about alienation, madness, shattered
dreams: the disillusioned West Indian outsider’s disenchantment with
Africa. Myriam Warner-Vieyra looks at women’s lives, at the paths they
have taken, at the possibilities open to women in the Caribbean, in
Africa, in life. She forces readers, through the double narrative of
Juletane and Helene, to reexamine easy assumptions, to look again at
safe generalizations.
Includes valuable Introduction 2014 by the translator.