White Spirit

After answering a classified ad placed by an import-export company looking for energetic young men willing to take on responsibilities for its African branchesno diploma requiredVictor finds himself onThe Will of God, a dilapidated boat heading into the heart of darkness as even Conrad couldn't have imagined. With the piquant mixture of hilarity and painful disenchantment characterizing Paule Constant's vision of the "colonial novel,"White Spiritfollows three innocentsVictor; Lola, a mulatto prostitute; and Alexis, who does not know he's a monkeyas they negotiate the perverse system of desires and hatreds on an African banana plantation. Selling what no one wants or needs, Victor takes delivery of a barrel of mysterious powder promptly christened "white spirit" for its ability to bleach the black arms of the workers handling the shipment. To become whiter and worthier of love, Lola buys someand then the rest vanishes. In this nightmarish Africa where colonized and colonizers have each other in a stranglehold, the "white spirit" unleashes an obsession that merges whiteness with a return to paradisean obsession that can only end in catastrophe. Through it all, with her characteristic caustic language, fierce irony, and enormous tenderness for human frailty, Constant portrays the ridiculous without ridiculeand, miraculously, sparks a light of hope in the midst of the torment and suffering.Constant, Paule is the author of 'White Spirit ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780803264410 and ISBN 0803264410.