Tills vattnet stiger

by Maryse Condé, Helena Böhme (Translator)

Livet ter sig torftigt och ensamt för läkaren Babakar. Efter att ha tillbringat större delen av sitt liv i ett Afrika märkt av fattigdom och statskupper, har han slagit sig ner på sin mors hemö Guadeloupe. Slumpen gör att han får ta hand om barnet Anaïs vars mor Reinette dör vid förlossningen. Babakars liv får en helt ny mening och han bestämmer sig för att resa till Reinettes hemland Haiti för att söka efter Anaïs släktingar. Men Haiti plågas av politiskt våld och naturens raseri, och när Babakar börjar undersöka Reinettes bakgrund ställs han inför mörka hemligheter …

Tills vattnet stiger är en gripande berättelse om människans behov av gemenskap och tillhörighet, oavsett släktskap och nationell härkomst.

Genres: Fiction, Africa, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Novels, Mali

317 pages, Hardcover

First published August 25, 2010

About the author

Maryse Condé was a Guadeloupean, French language author of historical fiction, best known for her novel Segu. Maryse Condé was born as Maryse Boucolon at Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, the youngest of eight children. In 1953, her parents sent her to study at Lycée Fénelon and Sorbonne in Paris, where she majored in English. In 1959, she married Mamadou Condé, an Guinean actor. After graduating, she taught in Guinea, Ghana, and Senegal. In 1981, she divorced, but the following year married Richard Philcox, English language translator of most of her novels.

Condé's novels explore racial, gender, and cultural issues in a variety of historical eras and locales, including the Salem witch trials in I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem and the 19th century Bambara Empire of Mali in Segu.

In addition to her writings, Condé had a distinguished academic career. In 2004 she retired from Columbia University as Professor Emeritus of French. She had previously taught at the University of California, Berkeley, UCLA, the Sorbonne, The University of Virginia, and the University of Nanterre.

In March 2007, Condé was the keynote speaker at Franklin College Switzerland's Caribbean Unbound III conference, in Lugano, Switzerland.

Reviews

[Cláudia Azevedo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Babakar é um obstetra nascido no Mali, muçulmano não praticante, que fala com a mãe, já morta e "adota" Anaïs.
Fouad é um palestiniano, mas, como "esse termo assusta as pessoas", diz-se libanês como o seu padrasto brutamontes.
Movar é um haitiano que emigra para fugir da miséria, acabando por conhecer Reinette. Esta, antes de morrer ao dar à luz, fá-lo prometer que levará a pequena Anaïs de regresso ao Haiti, onde estão as suas origens.
É assim que se juntam três homens totalmente diferentes, a quem une uma sincera amizade. Juntos vivem um pouco da história do Haiti, com a sua beleza e veia artística constantemente abaladas pelas guerras fratricidas, pela corrupção e pelas catástrofes naturais.
As culturas que aqui se cruzam são muito diversas, prevalecendo ainda crenças em feitiçarias, racismo de toda a espécie e intolerância religiosa. Vemos como um país parece condenado ao infortúnio e como os seus habitantes sucumbem sucessivamente à barbárie e ao caos.
Considero que este livro, ficcionado, sim, mas com muitos dados reais não datados, constitui uma janela para um mundo distante, permitindo-nos ter um vislumbre das perseguições, da chacina, dos ódios que matam nações. Impressiona, nesta medida. Faz-nos agradecer não termos nascido e vivido nesses meandros turbulentos e sangrentos, onde a vida vale menos que nada.
Fica também a memória da amizade destes três homens singulares, quase reais, que se sacrificam para cumprir uma promessa e que seguem unidos até ao fim.

[Akvilina Cicėnaitė · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Today, thanks to the New Academy Prize, I feel the liberation of having overcome a triple challenge: yes, women can write; yes, blacks can write; and yes, the inhabitants of a small, unimportant island, which never gets international attention, can write."

Atradimas man ši autorė - įdomi, savito balso, rašanti apie labai mažai man žinomų vietų ir žmonių istoriją. Teksto konstrukcija  nenugludinta, regis, nėra rišlios visumos, bet gal toks ir buvo autorės sumanymas - sudurstyti tekstą iš skirtingų spalvingų skiaučių, tarsi viena prie kitos nederančių, tačiau kartu sukuriančių įsimintiną paveikslą salų, kurias pasaulio žemėlapyje lengva pamiršti.

[Wissal H · Rating 4 out of 5]

ثلاثة رجال من ثقافات و بلدان مختلفة.

الطبيب باباكار الإفريقي الذي فقد حب حياته وتوفت أمه ذات العينيين الزرقاوين تزوره أحيانا في أحلامه و فؤاد الفلسطيني وموفار الهاييتي ثلاث قصص مختلفة جمع بينها البحث عن مستقبل أفضل بعيدا عن الحرب و العنف، في الجزيرة هاييتي الخلابة، بكل ما فيها من من جمال الطبيعة لكنها استطاعت توفير العش الآمن لهؤلاء الرجال

يضع القدر بين يدي باباكار طفلة صغيرة ماتت أمها عند ولادتها و قرر أن يتكفل بها و يضمن لها مستقبل أفضل وحياة أجمل.

رواية مليئة بالمشاعر والذكريات الجميلة، مشاعر الخوف و الرغبة في المضي بعيدا عن كل العنف والقتل بسبب الحروب، و ذكريات طفولته الإفريقية في بلده الأصلي مالي وحنينه لكل شئ عدا الواقع المعيش فيها آنذاك.


رواية جميلة جدا.

[Monica Cabral · Rating 4 out of 5]

Babakar Traoré é um obstreta que vive sozinho em Guadalupe e vive assombrado pelas memórias da sua infância no Mali mais concretamente com a memória da mãe que o visita regularmente em sonhos.
Uma  noite Babakar é chamado para auxiliar num parto complicado e chega tarde demais : a mãe,  uma imigrante ilegal está morta e a filha recém nascida, está sozinha no mundo.
Perante esta situação o médico numa atitude impulsiva decide adoptar a bebé colocando-lhe o nome de Anaís. Esta bebé veio colocar um ponto final na solidão de Babakar e quando a vida de pai e filha parecia perfeita surge Movar, um imigrante ilegal haitiano e que foi o companheiro da falecida mãe de Anaís e neste encontro ele conta a Babakar que o ultimo desejo da companheira era que a filha fosse criada no Haiti junto com a família materna. Babakar, junto com Movar viaja até ao Haiti à procura da familia materna de Anaís e lá conhece Fouad, um palestiniano que chegou ao Haiti muito jovem.
Á Espera da Subida das Águas é a história de Babakar,  Movar e de Fouad, três narrativas num só livro, três histórias de vida com muita dor, muita persistência e  superação.  Babakar é a personagem central deste romance,  um homem amargurado pelas constantes perdas que sofreu ao longo da vida mas sempre gentil no seu trabalho e com todos os que o rodeiam.  A escrita de Maryse Condé é muito boa, fluída, parece que a autora está ao nosso lado a contar esta história, uma história cheia de personagens ricas e memoráveis, uma história de migrações, exílios e sobrevivência, onde explora de forma tocante os efeitos da perda e do luto quer a nivel pessoal, quer a nível comunitário.

[BookOfCinz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Conde’s ability to take you on a journey is unmatched!

In Maryse Conde’s latest release we meet blue eyed Black people, we are taken to Mali, Guadeloupe, Palestine, Canada, and Haiti. A truly immersive read that you will not be able to put down.

In Waiting For The Waters To Rise we meet Babakar originally from Mali, he ends up living and working in Guadeloupe as a doctor. One night he is woken up and taken to a shack where he finds a dead mother and her recently birthed child. Babakar made the impromptu decision to take the child home and adopt her, not taking into consideration that the mother’s dying wish is to have her child taken back home to Haiti.

While in live improves significantly with the addition of the child to Babakar’s household, he feels complete and loved. One day a mother of the child shows up and convinces him to move back to Haiti so the child can be with her family- they journey to Haiti together. Nothing could prepare them for what would happen in next.

This story is well crafted. I love how Conde allows us to meet people, hear their backstory and how they end up where they are. I think for me, I love how we hear from a Palestinian who ends up in Haiti, a Haitian fleeing to Guadeloupe and the xenophobia that they face, Babakar who journeys from Mail to Guadeloupe… all of these people from all over the world meeting in Haiti. I love a book that is set in Haiti and it is not often I read about characters journeying to Haiti to settle and I enjoyed that.

Yes, some parts were a bit slow but overall I really enjoyed this one. The ending though… wow!

[Ahmed · Rating 3 out of 5]

رواية البحر الكاريبي و معاناة هايتي إلى جوادالوب مرورا بمعاناة مالي .
عندما اجتمع 3 أصدقاء من 3 قارات و ثقافات لكن جمعهم حب المساعدة و بناء المستقبل .
الرواية ثقيلة ( بالمعنى المعنوي). كثرة الظلم و القهر يتعب النفس .
الرواية واقعية و تطرح السؤال الابدي ( إلى متى ؟)

[Cat .classics · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

[Areeb Ahmad (Bankrupt_Bookworm) · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Knowing that all these people bore the name of Traoré like him filled him for the first time with a sense of security. Although he didn't forget his beloved mother, here her memory became blurred. He wallowed voluptuously in the meanders of a genealogy. He became a link in the great chain engendered by a hundred bodies."

The characters at the center of this novel are all dealing with not belonging, uprooted from their places of birth—their actual countries of origin—intentionally or due to circumstance. Their status as a foreigner, as an "outsider", in places where they reside, areas where instability is the norm, leads to tension. I was not fond of the structure where each new character goes into their extended backstory—it tends to melt as there's no effort to distinguish individual voices—breaking the flow, making the narrative unwieldy. It's translated from French by Richard Philcox.

I have some misgivings about the framing in the synopsis, namely of Haiti as a "beautiful, mysterious island" as it borders too close to exoticization for my taste. Moreover, Haiti is not a solitary country—it shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. I do appreciate Condé mapping similarities across the three characters, lives marked by collapse and upheaval, but it is poorly done. The prose is unremarkable, pacing wonky, women barely developed, and the last fifty pages perplexing.



(I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)

[Álvaro Curia · Rating 3 out of 5]

É um belíssimo livro, mas para mim teve um grande problema: todas as vozes de todas as personagens parecem a mesma.
Outro aspeto que não gostei tanto foi a abordagem ao homoerotismo, parece sempre que a narradora hesita em afirmar que houve atração sexual/ afetiva entre pelo menos duas personagens.

Mas é uma história bonita, que sobretudo nos traz muita informação sobre países como o Mali e o Haiti e cria a ideia de uma consciência comum nos descendentes dos escravos, independentemente do lugar onde vivem.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm still thinking about the title and its many interpretations.

This story follows the character of Babakar, a Doctor from Segu, Mali who delivers babies. In the opening chapter while it pours with rain outside, he is called to attend a birth of a young woman he does not know, but recognises, who does not survive the birth. Understanding that the man who accompanies her Movar, is not the father, he claims the baby as his own, seeing it as a sign, a return.

It does occasionally trouble him, what he has done and sure enough, one day Movar returns and tells him of the promise made to the young mother, to return her child to her family in Haiti.

Though the story follows Babakar, each time we encounter a new character, there is a digression into their backstory(s), so we learn of all these male characters stories, Babkar, Movar, Fouad who will all come together in Haiti, and underlying the visit, this search to find family.

Although the story is about the search for Anais's (the baby) family, for all that this is an employed man raising a young baby on his own, she was remarkably absent, as were her carers, creating a bit of a disconnect, considering the entire motivation for this grand journey was supposedly her well-being, or the pursuit of this promise.

With so much of the novel told in backstory, there was a lot of 'telling' and I found myself reading over parts of those narratives quite quickly as they didn't seem to progress or relate to the story itself. Perhaps there was something universal in the stories of the three main men, in the collapse of their earlier lives that found them seeking solace in each others company, but it didn't work for me as well as I hoped.

It was interesting, having just read Love, Anger, Madness: A Haitian Trilogy by Marie Vieux-Chauvet, to be back in Haiti and to understand more of the references and pick up on the atmosphere of the location, the unpredictability and quasi-fear around certain people, never quite knowing if they are safe or not and that metaphor of the title, suggesting disaster not far off.

Maryse Condé remains a favourite author and I'm looking forward to reading more of her work, last years Crossing the Mangrove was just brilliant as are here childhood essays in Tales from the Heart: True Stories from My Childhood.

[Nadia · Rating 4 out of 5]

حتى بين الأشقاء هناك عنصرية و تعصب بسبب الدين و الانتماء القبلي .
حكاية باباكار و فؤاد و موفار و رحلة بحث عن مستقبل أفضل .

[Kamal · Rating 2 out of 5]

مش فاكر دي المحاولة الكام مع الأدب الأفريقي وبرضه مش ظابط معايا

[Oscreads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story and novel. I enjoyed my time with this one. I did find certain sections to drag but this was great nevertheless.

[Rui Torres · Rating 3 out of 5]

Por falar em espera, este livro deixou de estar na lista de espera para, agora, pertencer à lista dos lidos. Lidos é parecido com livros e ainda bem, uma vez que ambas se relacionam.

Este livro relata a história de Babakar Traoré. Quem é? Ora bem, ele é um médico que habita em Guadalupe. A meio de uma noite, é acordado, em sobressalto, por alguém que vem apelar à sua ajuda num parto.

Reinette, é o nome da mãe que está a dar à luz. Anaïs nasce mas, por sua vez, a sua mãe não resiste e morre. Babakar fica, desta feita, responsável pela recém-nascida.

Reinette tinha o desejo de que a sua filha fosse criada no Haiti, para que ela ficasse a conhecer as suas origens. Este é o contexto duma aventura e travessia que esta narrativa alberga.

Babakar faz amizades com Movar e Fouad. Estes acompanham não só o crescimento de Anaïs, como todos os momentos cruciais da história.

Este livro engloba muitos temas pertinentes. A miséria, os rituais, a natureza a vestir a pele de madrasta, as tradições, a violência, as heranças culturais, o crime, o colonialismo, a insegurança, a política, a liberdade e bem... esta enumeração está isso mesmo, isto é, numerosa.

A turbulência presente nesta história é algo que nos destapa um pouco aquela que é a realidade de outros mundos que, paradoxalmente, fazem parte do nosso e não de outros.

São inúmeros os episódios que se transformam em testemunhos de vidas que estão sujeitas a todo o tipo de peripécias e que, por outro lado, fazem com que as mesmas se adaptem às mais variadas circunstâncias e a terem consigo uma tremenda preserverança.

Uma escrita espontânea que balanceia muito bem todos os assuntos, sem nunca esquecer o suspense e a aventura que Babakar tem, literalmente, entre mãos.

Se este livro espera pela subida das águas, vocês podem esperar, seguramente, por uma leitura memorável.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

This author definitely has a powerful storytelling voice. The best sections were the asides where characters told their life stories in wide, sweeping strokes, so that their individual experiences were all threaded through the fabric of historical events. As a novel I felt like it was a mess with no core to it. No heart maybe? Plenty of stuff happened, but if totally different stuff had happened I don’t think it would have made any difference in how I felt about the characters. That felt like a shame.

Also I always feel weird critiquing how women authors write women characters, but the only woman who had any sense of self got maybe ten pages to talk. That also felt like a shame.

[Maria João (A Biblioteca da João) · Rating 4 out of 5]

8 de 10*

Opinião:
https://abibliotecadajoao.blogspot.co...

[Cookie M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about Mali, Haiti and a doctor who was born in one and loved one the other. Very thoughtfully and lovingly written. Full of tragedy, love and hope. I recommend it.

[Truusje Truffel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Het noodlot dat hem aankleeft

De roman Tot het water stijgt van Maryse Condé (Guadeloupe, 1937) heeft tien jaar op een Nederlandse vertaling liggen wachten. Dit voorjaar verscheen die van de hand van Martine Woudt. Condé, inmiddels 84 jaar oud, debuteerde in 1976 en schrijft hedendaagse verhalen die zich voornamelijk afspelen op de Caraïbische eilanden en in gekoloniseerde landen van Afrika. Ze heeft een behoorlijk oeuvre opgebouwd met Caraïbische literatuur en staat erom bekend, als zwarte auteur met een missie, pleitbezorger te zijn van het filosofische panafrikanisme. In 2018 kreeg ze de alternatieve Nobelprijs voor de Literatuur, toen de originele versie niet werd uitgereikt vanwege de strubbelingen in het Nobelcomité.

In deze roman geeft Condé haar personages een eigen stem, door ze de ruimte te geven om vanuit hun eigen perceptie het verhaal over hun verleden te vertellen. Door dit vertelperspectief maakt ze de lezer deelgenoot van hun achtergrond en de tragedies ze hebben meegemaakt. Hiermee heeft ze een raamvertelling geschreven, in de ruimste zin van het woord. Ook haar eigen stem richt zich meer dan eens tot de lezer, wanneer ze je meeneemt terug in de tijd. Dit maakt het een meerdimensionaal verhaal met verschillende, diepere lagen.

Babakar Traoré – een jonge, alleenstaande arts, geboren uit een Malinese vader en een moeder uit Guadeloupe – wordt door de Haïtiaanse Movar geroepen om te assisteren bij de bevalling van een alleenstaande Haïtiaanse vluchtelinge, die bij de geboorte van haar dochter het leven laat. Eerder heeft de arts zelf zijn vrouw en ongeboren kind bij een ongeluk verloren. Omdat niemand in de mogelijkheid verkeert om voor de pasgeboren Anaïs te zorgen, besluit hij – in de vaste overtuiging dat het lot dit heeft bepaald – haar te adopteren.

'Het is bekend, het leven begint met een bloedbad. Maar dit hier was uitzonderlijk bloederig geweest. Het leek wel alsof de gestorvene had gevochten met een vijand die veel sterker was dan zij.'

In veelvuldig terugkerende nachtmerries wordt hij geplaagd door herinneringen aan zijn jeugd in Mali. Zijn moeder Thecla werd daar niet geaccepteerd door de gemeenschap in de veronderstelling dat ze een heks was; ze werd namelijk geboren met blauwe ogen. Nadat ze jong is gestorven, verschijnt zij regelmatig in zijn dromen om hem van moederlijk advies te voorzien. Dit geeft de roman een metafysische, magische toets. Het postume contact met Thecla geeft hem rust en stelt hem in staat om zijn angst en twijfels, die zijn nachtmerries hem bezorgen, te structureren. Gaandeweg wordt haar stem spottend en neemt ze afscheid van zijn dromen, met de mededeling dat ze een andere manier gevonden heeft om hem bij te staan.

Ook Movar heeft te maken met demonen uit het verleden, waarvoor hij eerder uit Haïti is gevlucht. Hij vertelt Babakar dat de moeder van Anaïs hem op het hart heeft gedrukt om – mocht er iets met haar gebeuren – met haar baby naar Haïti te gaan en haar naar haar familie te brengen. In Haïti wacht de Libanese Fouad – vriend van Movar – hen op. De drie mannen hebben gemeen dat zij ontworteld zijn en er ontstaat een hechte vriendschap die hen via diverse ervaringen zal loodsen naar het doel van de reis.

Onder de indruk van de abominabele levensstandaard in Haïti en besluit Babakar een weeshuis op te richten. Alleen wil het met de vrouwen in zijn leven niet zo vlotten en hij richt al zijn liefde op de baby.

'Babakars verdriet was grenzeloos. Estrella, de vrouw die hij maar één keer had gezien, één enkele keer maar, voegde zich in het pantheon der doden bij alle vrouwen die hij had liefgehad. Welk noodlot kleefde hem aan? Welk virus droeg hij in het geheim bij zich?'

Een groot thema is het klimaat, getuige de veelzeggende titel en de mogelijkheid dat de Caraïben ooit zullen worden verzwolgen door het wassende water. De verwoestende aardbeving en tsunami van 12 januari 2010 hebben een allesbepalende rol in het verhaal gekregen.

Stuk voor stuk zeulen de personages een rugzak vol verdriet en verlies met zich mee, doch verliezen ze nooit de moed om het beste uit het leven te halen. De auteur doet verslag van hun wel en wee, maar laat zich er niet toe verleiden om het sentiment dik aan te zetten; vlecht geestige woordspelingen door haar verhaal en dialogen, wat de toon lichthartig houdt. Het is een meeslepende zoektocht naar identiteit geworden die de gevolgen van ontworteling, armoede, vreemdelingenhaat en corruptie toont.

[Dominique · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in Guadeloupe, Mali, and Haiti (with a special appearance from Lebanon), Waiting for the Waters to Rise shows the effects of neocolonialism on everyday citizens. The constant rise and fall of puppet dictatorships creates a nation-less nation where today's oppressed are tomorrow's oppressors. There are no heroes. There are no victors.

Maryse Conde does an amazing job of painting the world that the characters inhabit. I use the term 'world' in the singular form because Conde insists that regardless of religious, linguistic, and class differences, all of these folks are trapped in chaos created by Western greed/immorality and sustained by egotism and corruption.

Unfortunately, I found myself struggling to finish the book because I felt like I was on a journey to nowhere filled with never-ending tragedy. It's the complete opposite of the summary on the back of the book with "three different identities looking for a more compassionate world". When did that happen?

The search for Anais' family was anticlimatic. Babakar's omniscient and hypercritical mother didn't serve much of a purpose. The women characters were one-dimensional and interchangeable; thus making it hard to empathize with the men mourning their disappearances and/or deaths to the point of paying ridiculous fees for seances.

It could be argued that the lack of plot intentionally forces the reader to reckon with the hopelessness and unpredictability that constant warfare creates. This would be forgivable if the characters were well-developed but they were not. Despite Maryse dedicating chapters to primary and secondary characters, I felt no closer to understanding who they were and what motivated their decisions.

Sadly it didn't take long for Babakar's apathy to rub off on me. I barely found the strength to finish the book. I suppose constant misery with no reprieve will do that to you.

Although this book failed to deliver, I plan to give Conde another try in a few years.

[Breena · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is engrossing. I found it an easy read. However, I wonder at the depictions of Haiti. Yes, it is probably a realistic depiction. I can’t dispute it first hand. But, Conde makes Haiti the metaphor for dysfunctional and fractured society. I didn’t feel as though I’d gotten a full depiction of the people of Haiti. Also, the descriptions of skin color, while seeming to critique colorized descriptions of people, falls into the same traps. The lives of the female characters play out along the predictable lines - exploitation as a youngster, early pregnancies and inevitable death. Throughout the novel, the reader reads with the knowledge of the inevitable tragedy that is coming. SPOILER ALERT: Ironically, no adult women are alive at the end. So, only two men who drag a helpless small child back into the chaos of an earthquake are the survivors. Conde is a skilled novelist, but this novel raises questions about perpetuating colorism. It is also so very determinedly heterosexist that I was surprised. Despite the author’s gender, some writers can’t manage female characters very well. I would have liked to better understand the interior lives of the female characters as well as the males.

[Ahmed · Rating 5 out of 5]

واقعية سحرية بلغة فرنسية و ترجمة عربية رصينة ، رواية لابد من قراءتها علي الأقل مرة

تتقاطع حيوات ابطال الرواية من خلفيات مختلفة ، أفريقية ، عربية ، فرنسية ، هايتية ، أمريكية ، يوميات المآسي و العوز

مصائر شديدة القسوة لمجتمعات أرادت الحياة بسلام ، صراعات غير مبررة ، دموية ، يسقط بيها البشر جرحي و قتلي بمبررات واهية

الكثير من السحر و الغرائبية ، و احداث متسارعة تبدأ في جوادولوب ، و نمضي مع باباكار و موفار و فؤاد عبر متاهة إنسانية مؤلمة

طبعة الاداب
ترجمة : معن عاقل

[Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

“How complicated we are, Babakar thought. For that reason, we’ll never be happy.”

[Cristina Delgado · Rating 4 out of 5]

Babakar é médico e vive sozinho em Guadalupe. Sozinho com o fantasma da sua mãe, que lhe aparece nos seus sonhos e lhe comanda a vida, dando-lhe ordens e comentando as suas escolhas, os seus medos, as suas incertezas. A ligação entre os dois, em vida, era muito forte e, depois da sua morte, também. Do nada, por uma coincidência da vida, que o próprio considera feliz, uma menina cai-lhe nos braços e passa a fazer parte da sua vida.

Aos poucos, a sua vida vai sendo preenchida por alguns amigos cujas vidas a narrativa vai desvendando aos leitores, aos poucos, com as suas histórias de abuso, dor, mistério. Mal comparando, fez-me lembrar uma viagem num meio de transporte em que vão entrando viajantes com as suas bagagens que mais não são que as suas vivências, que se vão somar às dos que já lá se encontram.

A viagem neste livro decorre maioritariamente no Haiti, para onde Babakar decide levar a menina, cuja ascendência é de lá, mas como pano de fundo está a História desse país liberto do jugo colonial mas ainda cheio de danos que o colonialismo provocou, cheio de ódio, violência, corrupção, racismo. Mas onde a amizade e o amor fazem de Babakar um privilegiado também.

Geograficamente recorri ao mapa para que as distâncias/países referidos se façam perto dado que cada personagem tem origens diferentes e, quando assim é, gosto de me situar visualmente. Foi sobretudo essa dificuldade que senti no decorrer desta leitura.

[Margarida Cabral · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5

[Chiara Liberio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Displacement, rootlessness and the quest for roots are the main themes in Maryse Conde’s Waiting for the Waters to Rise. It is the story of Babakar, a gynaecologist of Mali origins in Guadeloupe who fulfils the desire of a dying mother to take her child Anais back to Haiti where roots are, despite the country being ravaged by endless violence. This simple storyline expands to incorporate the life stories of Babakar, his family, and other characters from Africa and the Caribbean.

One of the author’s aims is to expose the devastation of postcolonial states, now struggling with democracy and self-determination and governed by puppets instated by foreign states. We observe the way power corrupts, the extent to which man would go, men’s inability to fight for ideals or think for themselves, self-serving dictators’ utter disregard for their own people, pointless fratricide wars and other niceties. Conde’s political satire is effective and biting, as she attempts to highlight the similarities between dilapidated paradises and generally what is at stake with human nature, feral and corruptible. While the ties and the common legacy of Africa and the Caribbean are definitely worth exploring, this approach tends to erase more local features under the unifying effect of satire.

Conde’s writing is vivid, mesmerising and worth your while. Babakar’s story of displacement is compelling, as he negotiates his identity among rootlessness as someone who “felt no sense of belonging” and national myths and his quest for Anais’s roots. Equally interesting are the stories of his companions. Their insertion makes the novel episodic and picaresque, which as a form befits the theme of rootlessness but makes the plot feel a bit loose. Still an important achievement.

I am grateful to World Editions for an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a big Maryse Condé fan. In fact, I’ve read most of her books in the original French, with this being the first I read in translation.

Waiting for the Waters to Rise is a story of displacement and migration, of the search for something to live for. Babakar, a West-African obstetrician, moves around West Africa and eventually to the Caribbean in hopes of finding a place where he can be accepted for who he his.

He makes two unlikely friends, the Haitian Movar and Palestinian Fouad, and through his own and the stories of his companions and people they meet, a world filled with racism, greed, violence, and corruption is laid bare.

I loved the African and Caribbean settings and really got a feel for the despair emanating from places like Haiti; as well as the epic scope of the storytelling––this is what Condé does best.

And yet––I hate to admit it––I felt a bit disappointed by this book. I had such high hopes. But I found it hard to get lost in the story. It was partly its bleakness, partly the sense of total apathy I got from Babakar.

Even though the book is filled with ideologically crazed people, Babakar himself was, as he admits, “not a man of ideals. In [his] opinion, no belief, no religion, no ideology was worth dying for.” And so he floats from country to country, with no true direction or sense of purpose and I, too, much to my disappointment, just couldn’t muster enough enthusiasm for his story.

[Katie · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of my least favourite books of all time. I read it for one of my world literature classes, where I got to rant about it enough that I don't have to voice my thoughts in great detail right now. So, summary: incredibly misogynistic protagonist(s) whose horrifying behaviour is never met with any consequences; okay storytelling and plot (if you like the genre, which I don't); relatively good pacing; weird af structure with insane info dumps; bad translation that lacks cohesiveness in more ways than one; and some of the most underdeveloped relationships between characters I've ever seen. I generally tend to be very critical, but I think the fact that no one else in the class (including the professor) liked the book either kind of allows for the conclusion that it genuinely isn't very good.

The one thing I will say is that I'm always looking to read more broadly than I am at any given moment, and this book is very unlike what I'd pick for myself. I appreciate the cultural insights I gained, and I am glad to have read a book by an author from Guadeloupe. That, and I don't think I've read a great deal of originally French language literature so far.

[Cecile Hascoet · Rating 5 out of 5]

We follow Babakar, a doctor, born in Mali from a Guadeloupean mother with blue eyes and a Bambaran father (ethnicity from West Africa). Babakar is a solitary character until he illegally adopts a baby girl from a dead illegal Haitian woman.
This book is structured is an interesting way as every characters gets to remember their own personal stories. We, then travel to those countries destroyed by war, racism, unforgiven nature (storm, tsunami, flood,,) The characters, Babakar, Mowar, a poor Haitian boy, Fadi, a Palestinian, all shared a friendships. Nothing in common, but the love for this baby Anais, and the fact that none has ever had a lucky break in love, in life.. The book is filled with tragedy, but never gives up on life.
I was absolutely engrossed in this story for hours. Maryse Condé is an exceptional story teller. I can only recommend reading this book not because of the many tropical and topical themes in today’s world, but to discover the poesy of the creole languages, culture and its people resilience.

[Sookie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A story of three people who all find themselves in a common place, each escaping horrors of their own country - its horror and the terrors they were facing. Maryse Conde deftly narrates this story that transcends individualism and elevates identity, familial relationships and what it means to belong.

The characters experience xenophobia, their own personal trauma and horrors and the growing impact of country's changing political landscape. Its at Haiti where the characters all arrive at where the politics of the time impact the characters directly. This constitutes majority of the third act of the story and this is also where the story becomes entangled and a bit confusing. The characters' narration is very rushed however they are all given a pretty powerful ending.

Thank you to Netgalley and World Editions for providing me with a free copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.

[Simone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and The Publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I'm somewhat ashamed to say this is the first thing I have read by Maryse Condé, but it certainly won't be the last. This is a story of lives lived and uprooted by conflict - pain and suffering but also how they find joy and meaning in all the chaos and what 'home' and 'belonging' means to them. Many cultures are covered in this book and I really loved that. I also appreciated the francophone perspective over my normal anglophone one. Despite some supernatural elements and the bleakness of the individuals backstory and the circumstance they find themselves in, for me the story telling was fantastic, it totally consumed me. However, I can't put my finger on what, but something was missing to make it perfect for me. However, this is a book that will stay with me and I would highly recommend it others.