White Spirit Book

After answering a classified ad placed by an import-export company looking for energetic young men willing to take on responsibilities for its African branches—no diploma required—Victor finds himself on The 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 Spirit follows three innocents—Victor; Lola, a mulatto prostitute; and Alexis, who does not know he’s a monkey—as 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 some—and 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 paradise—an 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 ridicule—and, miraculously, sparks a light of hope in the midst of the torment and suffering.

Publishers Weekly

Sad ironies illuminate this deftly mapped journey to the postcolonial heart of darkness, winner of the 1990 Grand Prix du Roman de l'Academie Francaise. Signing on for employment with an import-export company, working-class Victor boards a rickety boat called The Will of God and sails from France to Port-Banane, an outpost in an unnamed, contemporary African country. Also on board is the banana plantation boss, who's bringing along a beautiful, light-skinned black French prostitute, Lola. She's reluctantly hired at the plantation's brothel, called Sunset Boulevard, by a one-eyed madam who transforms all her girls into Hollywood-style platinum blondes. Victor, who's infatuated with Lola, is put in charge of the banana plantation's local store, filled with cast-off goods no one buys. With hacked, peroxided hair, Lola still aspires to whiteness, so Victor sells her a corrosive powder-the "White Spirit" of the title-that bleaches her skin. The remainder of the powder ends up in the hands of a fanatical African religious leader, who puts the substance to horrific use. With prose both dark and rollicking, Constant (also Prix Goncourt winner for Trading Secrets) chronicles colonialism's terrible absurdities and reverberating effects on both Africans and Europeans. (Apr. 10) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.