Some readings for this novel

Note: We have read and studied numerous other articles and books not included here, but this is a list we thought would be most useful to potential readers who want to know more about Martinique, creole culture, and the period of time in the scope of our novel, Ghosts of Saint Pierre.

Fiction

about Martinique and the French Antilles:

• The Wide Sargasso Sea, Jeanne Rhys, Norton & Co., 1999. This is an edition with a variety of critical essays, edited by Judith L. Raiskin.

• Solibo Magnificent, Patrick Chamoiseau, translated by Rose-Myriam Réjouis and Val Vinkurov, Pantheon 1997.

• Slave Old Man, Patrick Chamoiseau, translated by Linda Cloverdale, The New Press, 2018.

• The Fourth Century, Eduoard Glissant, translated by Betsy Wing, University of Nebraska Press, 2001.

• Youma: The Story of a West Indian Slave, Lafcadio Hearn

• Creole Folktales, Patrick Chamoiseau, translated by Linda Cloverdale, The New Press, 1994.

• Strange Words, Patrick Chamoiseau, translated by Linda Cloverdale, Granta Books, London, 1998.

• Texaco, Patrick Chamoiseau

• Climb to the Sky, stories by Suzanne Dracius, translated by Jamie Davis, University of Virginia Press, 2012. 

• Martinique Snake Charmer, André Breton, translated by David W. Seaman, University of Texas Press, 2008

• Crossing the Mangrove, Maryse Conde, translated by Richard Philcox, Anchor Books, 2011.

• Claire of the Sea Light, Edwidge Danticat, Vintage, 2013. About Haiti.

About early 20th century in America:

• City of Light, Lauren Belfer, Dial Press, 2010.

• The Anarchist, John Smolens, Michigan State University Press, 2018.

Non-fiction

• Two Years in the French West Indies, Lafcadio Hearn, Signal Press, 2001, from the original edition published in 1890.

• Dangerous Creole Liaisons, Jacqueline Couti, Liverpool University Press, 2016.

• Sugar and Slavery, Family and Race: The letters and diary of Pierre Desalles, Planter in Martinique, 1808—1856, edited and translated by Elborg Forster and Robert Forster, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

• Sweet Liberty, The final days of slavery in Martinique, Rebecca Hartkopf Schloss, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.

• Paradise Destroyed: Catastrophe and Citizenship in the French Caribbean, Christopher M. Church, University of Nebraska, 2017.

• Fire Mountain: How one man survived the world’s worst volcanic disaster, Peter Morgan, Bloomsbury, 2003.