La Rue Cases-Nègres

by Joseph Zobel

« Quand la journée avait été sans incident ni malheur, le soir arrivait, souriant de tendresse. D'aussi loin que je voyais venir m'man Tine, ma grand-mère, au fond du large chemin qui convoyait les nègres dans les champs de canne de la plantation et les ramenait, je me précipitais a sa rencontre, en imitant le vol du mansfenil, le galop des ânes, et avec des cris de joie, entraînant toute la bande de mes petits camarades qui attendaient comme moi le retour de leurs parents. M'man Tine savait qu’étant venu au-devant de'elle, je m’étais bien conduit pendant son absence. Alors du corsage de sa robe, elle retirait quelque friandise qu'elle me donnait : une mangue, une goyave, des icaques, un morceau d'igname, reste de son déjeuner, enveloppe dans une feuille verte ; ou, encore mieux que tout cela, un morceau de pain. »

Ainsi commence La rue Cases-Nègres, ce grand classique de la littérature antillaise, dans lequel Joseph ZOBEL, né le 26 avril 1915 a Rivière-Salée, nous décrit la Martinique des années 30 en peignant avec la mémoire du cœur et des blessures, la vaillance, la dureté et la tendresse des descendants d'esclaves acharnes a bâtir pour leurs enfant, un pays plus libre et plus généreux. Décédé le 17 juin 2006 a Ales, ce romancier et poète martiniquais est l'un des plus remarquables conteurs des « travaux et des jours » du peuple antillais.

Genres: Fiction, France, Classics, School, Coming Of Age, Historical Fiction, 20th Century

Paperback

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

Zobel’s writing centered the rural poverty of colonial Martinique, the harsh conditions of the plantation system, and the life of the working-class poor. His friendship and engagement with other literary figures provided support and inspiration for his own writing and travels. Aimé Césaire, for example, encouraged him to write a novel, thus providing the impetus for Zobel’s Diab-là (written 1942 but published in 1946). Later, acting upon fellow writer Léopold Sédar Senghor’s suggestion that he experience African life, Zobel moved to Africa, living in Casamance and Dakar, where he was inspired to write Si la mer n’était pas bleue (1982) and Mas Badara (1983). Worldwide fame arrived in 1983 with Martinican director Euzhan Palcy’s film version of his award-winning La Rue Cases Nègres, which won 17 international awards, including a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

Some of Zobel’s other works include Laghia de la mort (1946), Incantation pour un retour au pays natal (1964), Les Mains pleines d’oiseaux (1978), Quand la neige aura fondu (1979), Poèmes de moi-même (1984), Poèmes d’amour et de silence (1994), Le soleil m’a dit… (2002), and Gertal et autres nouvelles (2002).

Zobel is remembered as a gracious, if reluctant celebrity, but mostly as a writer who understood the framework and impact of colonialism, and who both understood and transcended poverty. The school in his home town of Rivière-Salée is now named after him, Lycée Joseph Zobel.

Reviews

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a biographical coming of age novel. Zobel narrates his impoverished childhood as a black child in Martinique in the early 20th century. Education was the only hope of bettering his life. To this end, his mother and grandmother sacrificed their lives. This is a story filled with brutal love, crushing poverty, crippling injustice and bleak prospects. If it was not for the introduction which told me of the author’s professional success, this would have been a hopeless book. As it was, there was a tone of bitter resentment that flavored the narrative.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an autobiographical novel. Martinique was a French colony, and apparently is still a French protectorate, being a member of the European Union. The French ended slavery in the mid-1850s, but there continued to be a separation of the races both economically and culturally. I have been given to understand the novel begins in the 1930s. It is broken into three roughly equal sections, so the "chapters" are definitely longish.

When the novel opens, Jose is a little boy - I'm guessing about 5-years old. He lives with his grandmother, M'man Tine, who works in the sugar cane fields. Jose and others in Black Shack Alley are left alone during the day while the elders work in the fields. They explore - and manage to get into no end of trouble doing so.

Jose grows and eventually goes to school. He is a good student and earns a scholarship to the lycée. He works hard, but doesn't much care for most of the subjects. However, he falls in love with literature and almost cannot find enough books to read. Who of us wouldn't love such a character?

Much of the writing is simply gorgeous. Jose is sometimes taken to visit the waterfront in Fort-de-France.

Strange, too, the force with which the water moved in all directions, like a herd of blue, skinless excited beasts that barked, foamed, and lashed the small boat with their soft, slimy sides, then sped away, their manes flying in the breeze, to beset and toss about the few canoes around us that seemed to be heading nowhere.

The novel grew on me. Reading of the poverty when Jose was young was difficult, but he grew into such a fine person I was almost sorry when the novel ended. Is this truly worth the 5-stars I've colored in?

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing story, also saw the movie in a French class, and also well done. It's one of those tales that helps you appreciate what you have in life, especially growing up, and how important education can be for changing one's life, particularly when in extreme poverty. The images of the children, and of the time they all got drunk while the parents were working in the cane fields, will be something I will always remember.

[Vince Will Iam · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful coming-of-age novel set in the French Caribbean island of Martinique. A brilliant depiction of Martinican folklore and the ravages of colonization on the native population. Zobel pays a moving tribute to his grandmother and central character Man Tine.

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was a special one for me because the author is describing growing up on the island that i come from. his home is mine but we experienced it at very different times.

reading about Martinique in the 20th century was so interesting and reminded a lot of how my grandparents used to describe it to me when i was a kid.

definitely recommend reading if you’re interested in autobiographical literature! (if anyone wants to read it in english, the title is Sugar Cane Alley).

[maia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for class, very well done novel and exploration of racism, growing up, and family relationships.

[Stasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

"La Rue Cases-Negres" par Joseph Zobel nous dit l'histoire d'un petit garcon qui habite avec sa grand-mere et son enfance a la Martinique. J'ai etudie ce roman dans ma premiere trimestre au lycee pour ma classe de la litterature francaise.

J'ai bien aime cette histoire parce qu'elle a demontre la vie des negres et la injustice sociale dans les annees trente. Mais au meme temps, c'est plein de moments tres tendres et profond dans ce temps-la, avec la famille et aussi avec l'amitie.De ce que je me souviens, le protagoniste Joseph habite avec sa grand-mere parce que sa mere est allee a la cite pour le travail. Joseph se rends compte que la vie n'est pas toujours juste, comme resultat il existe des instances quand il doit grandir plus rapide qu'il a voulu. Enfin, Joseph apprend a affronter des issues comme ca avec la dignite et l'humilite.

[Olivier · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book opened up my eyes on the cultural heritage of colonization on my peers, coming from a tropical island, an ex-french colony.

Lots of elements in the book were very familiar; the sugar cane workers, the addiction to the escapism of rum, the stratification of society by skin colour.

A poignant tale from Zobel.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written - somewhat of a dedication to his grandmother who sacrificed much to give Zobel the gift of an education to allow him to escape the poverty surrounding the blacks of Martinique. One of the last descriptions - his grandmother's hands in the repose of death - is very moving.

[Martin Moriarty · Rating 5 out of 5]

“That was the day that nearly all the men working on the Poirier plantation came for their baths and to bathe the horses belonging to the managers and overseers. Some took the opportunity to wash their old work clothes. They all took off all their clothes. Each one mounted his horse and made it enter the water. The animal moved deeper in, disappeared in the water, swam around, head held high. And the man’s body emerged, evoking that half-man, half-horse figure that I saw on the packets of vermicelli. The animal then came back to the bank, the man alighted and, with a wisp of straw, rubbed it down energetically, returning to the water afterward to rinse off the creature …. I’d never seen anything so simple and so beautiful as big black men in the nude, standing beside their stalwart horses, their reflections mirrored in the water of a lake.”

[marisa :) · Rating 4 out of 5]

so beautifully written !!!!!! also losing my mind over it because it is the first book i have discussed all semester and i feel alive !

[Lelah Hostettler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually really enjoyed getting to watch the main character grow up.

[Dr G · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had heard of neither this book nor its author until I read that Maryse Condé was inspired to write about the conditions in which she grew up after reading Joseph Zobel’s Black Shack Alley originally published in French as La Rue Cases Nègres. Zobel wrote a semi-fictionalised autobiography about his childhood in 1930s Martinique. This was the first time Condé had encountered the idea that someone from a background like hers might write a book about it.
The characters in Black Shack Alley are almost all black and living at the very bottom end of poverty. This is after slavery has been finished, but when indentured servitude of the Blacks was hardly any different from slavery.
This book is certainly not a political tract; it is an apparently accurate, detailed account of life in a historical setting, but to which the reader could hardly respond without political judgments; it has remarkably few overt political comments from the author.
The narrator, José, lives as a young infant with his illiterate grandmother, M’man Tine in a one-room shack in Black Shack Alley. She works for the béké, the landowner planter descended from slave owners. Later, he moves in with his mother, Délia who has risen to be a servant to an affluent white family living in the town. She is pleased with this elevated status.
“Black Shack Alley comprised some three dozen ramshackle wooden huts, covered with galvanize, standing at regular intervals at the side of a hill. To the top there stood, majestically, the house of the manager whose wife ran a little store. Between ‘the house’ and Shack Alley, one found the overseer’s little house, the mule compound, the manure pile. Below Shack Alley and all around, stretched vast fields of cane, at the end of which one could see the factory. This whole area was called Petit-Morne.”
The young children enjoy themselves running around freely, "There were large trees, groups of coconut trees, palm trees lining paths, a river lazily flowing through the grass of a savannah. And it was all so beautiful. At any rate, we children enjoyed it immensely." “We ‘bigger ones’ knew the paths and the spots where you could catch crayfish with your bare hand, under the babbling rocks in the streams. We knew how to pick guavas and husk dry coconuts. And cane ready for sucking, that was our specialty." And "we devoted our time to the innocent game of chasing dragonflies, for example. For on afternoons there were many of them about and in all colors….In the afternoon we amused ourselves by surprising these dragonflies by taking them for a run, their wings imprisoned between our fingers. Then we released them when they could no longer fly for the mere pleasure of recapturing them, mutilating them and giving their bodies to the ants." There is an obvious metaphor here: the children’s ingenuous cruelty with insects, and the békés’ random cruelty towards other human beings.
The children’s circumstances are, in reality, dire: “Old men’s jackets floated on the backs of the other boys and were ripped asunder during their frolicking; or vests with so many holes in them that they in no way covered the frail bodies that pretended to wear them. As for the girls’ dresses: a cord slung over the shoulder from which fringes loosely hung that hid nothing at all. And everybody bareheaded with woolly hair made red by the sun, noses running with a greenish substance like teams of slugs, knees skinned like fowls’ feet, feet the color of stone displaying toes that were swollen with chiggers.”
Lighting in M’man Tine’s shack is from a kerosene lamp, there is no reading material, and there is an intense belief in supernatural spirits and forces (“Never say good evening to a person you meet on the road when it is beginning to get dark. Because if it’s a zombi, he’ll carry your voice to the devil who could then take you away at any time"). Meals are rudimentary: “For lunch, I had had just the amount of cassava flour and the small bit of salt codfish she had left me. I had not used too much oil, and couldn’t find the sugar tin which she must have stashed in a hiding place only the devil himself could unearth.” Despite the basic conditions, standards must be kept: “I had not broken any plates, and had even swept the smoothened earth floor of the hut, so as to clean up the specks of flour that had fallen while I was having my lunch.” (Zobel is quoted in the Introduction as being delighted with this translation. I cannot share his enthusiasm; infelicities such as “smoothened” appear too regularly.)
The children were also, however, aware of hierarchy: "‘The overseer!’ Orélie shouted. Everyone ground to a halt. Barely time to catch the white parasol just visible at the crook in the road before we dove into the ditches. And with a loud crackling of grass and scratching straw raking my head, I tried crawling on all fours to reach the deepest part of the cane field."
M'man Tine, we are later told, had been made pregnant by her “commander”, and that child became José’s mother. The grandmother lacks any sophistication and employs primitive forms of punishment, beating José with a stick, slapping his face, forcing his prolonged kneeling in sand, when he is naughty. She is often exhausted from her work in the fields, gathering canes, and her pleasures come from her morning coffee and her pipe. José’s bedding is a “large bundle of rags which she spread for me to sleep on over a sheepskin lying on the ground.”
Gradually, though, his relationship with her becomes more nuanced: When he learns to read, she brings out the paper in which sugar or pepper had been wrapped, and she would “ask me to read what was on it for her. On more than one evening, while in the glow of our kerosene lamp, I was struggling valiantly with one of those bits of paper, I thought for a minute that I detected in M’man Tine’s eyes a look of deepest tenderness, enhanced by the most touching admiration.”
Finally, as he observes her corpse, he arrives at a full understanding: “Those hands which M’man Tine used to wash carefully every night, more meticulously so on Sunday mornings, but which seemed rather to have gone through fire, beaten with a hammer on a stone, buried then uprooted with all the earth clinging to them; then soaked in dirty water, dried out in the sun over long hours, and finally thrown there, with sacrilegious carelessness, on the whiteness of that sheet in the depths of that obscure shack. . . . Those hands as familiar as the voice of M’man Tine, had fed me my dishfuls of crushed roots, had washed me clean with a tenderness that did not even lessen the roughness, had dressed me, had scrubbed my clothes on the stones of the river. One of those hands had clutched my little hand one day to take me to school—I could still feel it. They had never been pretty, obviously; they had seen so many blemishes, drawn and raised so many loads. And every day squeezed, scratched, and clinging to the handle of the hoe, an easy prey to the fierce cuts inflicted by the cane leaves to create Route Didier.”
José's most enjoyable times are those spent with the old man, Mr. Médouze who "evoked another country even further away, even deeper than France, which was that of his father: Guinea. There, people were like him and me; but they did not die of tiredness nor of hunger. There was no misery as there was here. Nothing stranger than to see Mr. Médouze evoke Guinea, to hear the voice rising from his entrails when he spoke of slavery and related the horrible story his father had told him, of the rape of his family, of the disappearance of his nine uncles and aunts, of his grandfather and his grandmother."
Mr Médouze recalls that, when slavery was abolished, he "went running all over Martinique because, for a long time, I had so wanted to flee, to run away. But when the intoxication of my freedom was spent, I was forced to remark that nothing had changed for me nor for my comrades in chains. I hadn’t found my brothers and sisters, nor my father, nor my mother. I remained like all the blacks in this damned country: the békés kept the land, all the land in the country, and we continued working for them. The law forbade them from whipping us, but did not force them to pay us our due."
And little had changed up to the time of José's story. He asks Mr. Médouze how the whites gained all their money and was told the devil gave it to them: "I already knew by intuition that the devil, misery, and death were more or less the same evil individual, who persecuted the blacks above all. And I wondered in vain what blacks could have done to the devil and to the béké to be so oppressed by both."
When M’man Tine takes him to his first mass, he is perplexed by a crucifix icon: “the one nailed to a huge cross of hard wood, nailed hand and foot—the way we would transfix, on the fences to the shacks, the small lizards we caught—left there bleeding. He had a beard, lots of hair, and was almost naked; and you could see his ribs under his skin. He reminded me of Mr. Médouze, lying with his tattered loincloth on his hard plank in the center of his hut. And his tragic position there, on the cross, seemed to me as incomprehensible as Mr. Médouze’s. And yet, he wasn’t black . . .”
José’s narrative follows his move through the various levels of schooling. More seminally, it follows his move through growing understandings of the social dynamics of his world.
He is offered a scholarship to a well-regarded school, but it is only for a quarter of the fees. His mother understands the real meaning of this: “They are too wicked! It’s because we’re black, poor, and alone in the world that they didn’t give you a full scholarship. They fully realize that I’m an unfortunate woman and that I couldn’t pay for you to go to the lycée. They know only too well that giving you a quarter scholarship is the same as not giving you anything at all. But they don’t know what a fighting woman I am. Well! I’m not giving up this quarter scholarship. You will go to their lycée!”
His own determination at this stage does not match his mother’s. “What was I doing in that lycée? My mother was told that I could leave school with enough knowledge to enable me to go to France and become a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer.” His own picture of the future is different: “As for me, I’d have a large property, as big as the whole countryside around us. I wouldn’t plant any sugarcane, except a few stalks for my dessert. But I’d have many people cultivating vegetables and fruits along with me, rearing hens, rabbits, but even to go to work, they’d put on trousers and shirts that were not torn, they’d wear fine suits on Sundays, and their children would all go to school. M’man Tine would not be dead; she’d take care of the hens, gather the eggs. M’man Délia would look after the housework. I was really dreaming when Jojo, bringing me back to everyday reality, said to me, without any malice: ‘But you couldn’t have all that—you’re not white, you’re not a béké.’ ‘Makes no difference.’ ‘But your workers, then, they’ll be almost as well fed and lodged as the békés! Then, there’ll be no more niggers; and what are the békés going to do!’ I remained confused, ashamed, somewhat sad.”
Because his mother’s only achievable ambition is ambition for her son, she commits to finding the money, regardless of the ardour it would involve. And, a precursor to many later family disjunctions throughout the world, José does not necessarily translate her determination and hardship to a personal responsibility in him. And, of course, enrolling at the college does not eliminate the difficulties; he is the only boy dressed so badly, but that is not the extent of his alienation: “I think rather that it was my self-centeredness, my lack of gaiety, in contrast to their easygoing behavior, their joy among themselves, the fact that they were at home in this lycée, that isolated me. Of course, if there were one who had been born in a Black Shack Alley, one whose parents wielded a spade or a cutlass, I’d have recognized him and approached him. But I was the only one of my kind.”
After a while, he makes a friend, Bussi, who introduces him to the joys of reading. “The world, as portrayed in those works destined for young people, was divided in two: an ordinary, everyday world, brutal and unresponding to desires, and a spacious, logical world, above all kind, interesting, and desirable. Wasn’t the very act of reading a pleasure more substantial than that of playing or eating, for instance, even when one was starved?”
Even with this step forward, he still occupies a circumscribed universe: “I preferred novels. I admired the gift, the power possessed by a man who wrote a novel. I would really have liked to do likewise one day. But how would I manage that? I had never frequented those people with blond hair, blue eyes, pink cheeks, that were put in novels. Towns, with their motorcars, their big hotels, their theaters, their salons, their crowds, the ocean liners, trains, mountains, and plains, the fields, farms where novels were set, none of that I had ever seen. I was only familiar with Black Shack Alley, Petit-Bourg, Sainte-Thérèse, men, women and children, all more or less black. Now, certainly that was not the stuff novels were made of, since I had never read any of that color.”
Gradually, as he becomes older and experiences more, José’s understanding of the world becomes more perceptive of the cruel realities. He observes the servants in the békés’ houses, and extends his ethical judgments to the servants’ complicity in the system:
“Then, for me who up to that time had known only people working without respite, my amazement became greater and greater at the sight of that corporation whose task—determined by whom I had no idea—and sole concern consisted of doing for others what they could hardly do for themselves. And for what in return? Not even a salary commensurate with their effort. And despite it all, in that world, being a servant in a béké’s house meant having a decent job. I could not get accustomed to the passive indigence of the servants, unless I were to believe that people like my grandmother and my mother were duty bound to take care of, to enhance, to prolong the life of another category of people who did not do and who did not think it their duty to do for them anything whatsoever in return.”
José is troubled by the underclass’s deferential acceptance of the hierarchy which their society reflects. One element of this is acceptance of a hierarchy of blackness: “Everyone knows that when such liaisons produce children with the ‘redeeming’ complexion, their mothers are only too proud that they—black like the blackboard of the conscience of the béké—have contributed to what, in the inferiority complex, is dear to the hearts of many West Indian blacks: ‘Lightening the race.’ For, to my great despair, I detected in Carmen’s mind the attitudes that betrayed all of those West Indian complexes, so contrary to all dignity.” The servants’ self-regard is based upon entrenched deferential inferiority: “And we can’t humiliate ourselves again by going to work for the békés in old, ragged clothes. We must always be clean. We too have our pride.”
A significant part of the charm of Black Shack Alley is that it has an unembellished straight-forwardness to the writing style. However, allowing for that, there is some lovely writing, especially in the imagery:
*“Furthermore, Mme Léonce would read in a voice that made us laugh. “A voice like a mad goat,” said Michel-Paunch. Or rather, according to Nanise, “a voice like a hen that has just laid an egg.”
*”When the sun went out, exhausted, so to speak, after drying so much linen,”
*”Our History and Geography teacher talked too much, and in a tart, threadlike voice that reminded you of a constant drizzle.”
Finally, José sees a new destiny: “I was the one who wished to rid them of their self-imposed gloom out of respect for my grief. I should, for example, tell them a story. But which one? The one which I knew best and which tempted me most at that time was quite similar to theirs. It is to those who are blind and those who block their ears that I must shout it.” And Joseph shouted it. This is an important book which should be much better known.

[Carmen · Rating 5 out of 5]

...Those hands as familiar as the voice of M'man Tine, had fed my dishfuls of crushed roots, had washed me clean with tenderness that did not even lessen the roughness, had dressed me, had scrubbed my clothes on the stones of the river.
One of those hands had clutched my little hand one day to take me to school _I could still feel it.

[Kelly_Hunsaker_reads ... · Rating 4 out of 5]

Black Shack Alley is a rich and devastating novel about a young black boy coming-of-age in Martinique. It is a book that exposes colonialism, slavery, poverty, prejudice, colorism, and financial unrest. It was published in 1950 and is based upon the author's own experiences growing up in the 1920s. For me everything about this book was new and informative as I knew virtually nothing about the history of the Caribbean.

The book takes place in three parts, each of which depict a different place where Jose (the protagonist) lives at that period of his life. And the most interesting part of it for me is the emphasis on his education and how that influences everything else. It makes me grateful to be raised in the time and place that I was as I realize all the more just how lucky I have been.

The part of the book that touched me most was the first part of Jose's life when he lived with his grandmother in Rue Cases-Negres, or Black Shack Alley. This is a group of tiny shacks located on the land of the sugar cane plantation and are occupied by the very poor people who work there. Jose's mother is away as a live-in servant, and his grandmother works the fields everyday leaving Jose in the alley to play with friends. The poverty is stark and unrelenting. But the occupants do so much to make their lives interesting and to entertain one another. This part was difficult to take due to its harshness, but was also full of vivid descriptions of people and place. I loved it.

The relationship between Jose and his grandmother is touching, warm and beautiful. She was a tigress fighting for him to have a better life. I loved both of them, but as a mom she really spoke to me. Because of her Jose was able to go to school, and he found that he loved it. His education would change everything. I often talk about this with people in the USA but focus on college, or high school at the least. For this boy it was a big question whether he would attend grammar school. That was devastatingly sad for me, especially knowing that it is often still true in many places in the world.

*******
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[Miguel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A satisfying coming of age novel set in Martinique, Black Shack Alley fuses the familiar frame of the bildungsroman with the sensibilities of the Francophone Caribbean peasant novel. Though it is unfair to review this novel against the 1983 film adaptation by Euzhan Palcy, Sugar Cane Alley, the film is essential and unique in all the ways the book is familiar. For all the colorism and economic unrest that is captured in the film, the novel has a greater focus on the novel form and the motivations of its own creation. Zobel tries to answer the question what makes a story worth telling. In Palcy's version, Leopold (who is not a character in the novel, but seems to be a hybridized version of Raphael, Jojo, and Christian. Leopold's plotline also matches the anecdote Carmen tells Jose toward the end of the novel.

Leopold serves Sugar Cane Alley's explicit engagement with racism and economics as a plot device, whereas Black Shack Alley seems more invested in reconstituting Zobel's childhood and the kernel of his novelistic ambitions. Still, while Black Shack Alley doesn't deliver some of the most thrilling moments of the film (the film version of Medouze is much better, and the plagiarism/"education is the second key to the door to your freedom" moment is nowhere to be found in the novel) but is beautiful in its understated focus on Jose. Some moments of Jose's story and the way he experiences these various social forces in the vignettes that make up his life are reminiscent of the tradition of the so-called American slave narrative.

Palcy's version of Jose's story is larger than life, but Zobel renders Jose with an understatedness that is both vivid and impactful.

[2TReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zobel's scenic and creative descriptions are incredible, and while this story is semi-autobiographical, and we follow the growth of our main character, what is clear is how important and integral his grandmother and mother are. Strong Black women who were willing to work their bodies to the bone, and did, for Jose to not have to live a life dictated by the plantation and societal expectations.

-All the past of the black race, confronted with its present, was thus revealed to me as a challenge thrown out by history to this race, and such an observation made me throb with vibrant pride that made people organize armed resistance.- José

The simplicity that Zobel uses to narrate his tale does nothing to deter from the descriptiveness that marks every page. The depth of José's respect, adoration, and attachment to his grandmother, his mischievousness that he 'hides' from her and the manner in which he relays her devotion and dedication to himself can be felt in every day to day experience and exchange.

Seeing how the wider world affected José, as it opened up ever more to him, with his experiences, whether it be through his treatment by adults, his interactions with his well-off friend and classmates, or whether discovers through books, impresses on me the reader, deeply, though known, just how perceptive and intuitive children and young people are.

Zobel also goes into the different expressions of self-loathing among Blacks, the different ways in which the races socialize, the opportunities, difficulties, and obstacles that his people face in order to succeed.

A semi-autobiographical exploration, Black Shack Alley delves into how important every forward step that José was able to take, was initiated by the presence of strong Black women who worked hard, even to the detriment of their health, to ensure that his future would never be tied to plantations.

[Aimee Dars]

Penguin Classics recently reissued Black Shack Alley, a semi-autobiographical novel originally published in 1950 by Joseph Zobel, an author from Martinique with an insightful new foreword by Patrick Chamoiseau.

José lives with his grandmother, M’man Tine, a laborer on a sugar cane plantation, while his mother, Delia, works in Fort-de-France. With her work schedule and the expense of travel, Delia rarely returns to see her mother and son. Growing up, M’man Tine becomes José’s primary maternal figure, and she is determined that he have opportunities beyond the plantation so sacrifices to ensure he can attend school.

The book follows José from his childhood to late teens. As a boy, he is content with life on Black Shack Alley, a collection of deteriorating wooden huts on the sugar plantation for the laborers. Between the low wages and the inflated prices at the small store run by the manager’s wife, poverty was endemic. José’s and his friends wore tattered clothing, some so worn they hardly covered their bodies. With education and growth, José begins to question the attitudes and the social structures that created the inequalities between races on the island.

M’man Tine, strong, determined, and unforgiving, is a masterful character, and through José’s eyes, as he ages, we feel the pain of unfairness and exclusion, the unrelenting erosion to the soul from poverty and racism—as well as the reprieve that love and friendship provide.

Thank you to Edelweiss and Penguin Classics for providing an electronic copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

[2TReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

-All the past of the black race, confronted with its present, was thus revealed to me as a challenge thrown out by history to this race, and such an observation made me throb with vibrant pride that made people organize armed resistance.- José

The simplicity that Zobel uses to narrate his tale does nothing to deter from the descriptiveness that marks every page. The depth of José's respect, adoration, and attachment to his grandmother, his mischievousness that he 'hides' from her and the manner in which he relays her devotion and dedication to himself can be felt in every day to day experience and exchange.

Seeing how the wider world affected José, as it opened up ever more to him, with his experiences, whether it be through his treatment by adults, his interactions with his well-off friend and classmates, or whether discovers through books, impresses on me the reader, deeply, though known, just how perceptive and intuitive children and young people are.

Zobel also goes into the different expressions of self-loathing among Blacks, the different ways in which the races socialize, the opportunities, difficulties, and obstacles that his people face in order to succeed.

A semi-autobiographical exploration, Black Shack Alley delves into how important every forward step that José was able to take, was initiated by the presence of strong Black women who worked hard, even to the detriment of their health, to ensure that his future would never be tied to plantations.

[Maisie Camille · Rating 4 out of 5]

Black Shack Alley follows José, a young black boy in Martinique, as he navigates plantation life with his friends, neighbours, and grandmother, M’man ‘Tine. He goes from spending his free time with friends in the plantation village, to studying at the local school and being baptised, to studying for a higher education in a more urban town. It explores race relations, power and identity, social mobility, and white supremacy. I thought it particularly interesting how the main character viewed animal abuse, and felt like this was a reflection of the treatment of black people in colonial Martinique. I recommend this book because it explores the impact on identity that colonisation has. As a reader, I also loved how José became an avid reader towards the end of the story. As an English literature student studying cultural crossings, my favourite quote is: ‘The black man, invoking so little indulgence by his colour, was tolerable only to the extent that he behaved like a saint.’ As a reader, my favourite quote is: ‘What made this garden even more attractive to us were the bookish characters we all carried there. All the romantic or bucolic evocations from my literature classes or from my reading sought refugee there and became concrete, in order to quench the thirst created in us by the most beautiful verse we had studied.’

[Dori Sabourin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of Jose Hassam, born and raised in Colonial Martinique where his M'man Tine works on a Sugar Cane plantation during the day as Jose and his friends run wild. Tiring of his antics and determined to have Jose grow up to aspire to something other than forced labor; along with his mother, Delia set a plan in action to send Jose to school. Once there, Jose feels alien to this world until he slowly makes friends. Regardless of his social status, Jose likes school and by the time he finishes his time at the first school, he earns a quarter scholarship to attend the Lycee. Delia takes in laundry and ironing to compensate for the remainder of his tuition, until she takes a more lucrative position as a housekeeper.
He fails his exams the first semester but passes his Baccalaureat three months later. As his schooling comes to a close, two of his earlier friends, Carmen and JoJo reenter his life. The three of them share experiences and books. When his M'man Tine dies, both friends are there for him as he grieves her death.
Zobel relates the hardness with which children and adults had to endure in order to survive.

[Dori Sabourin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of Jose Hassam, born and raised in Colonial Martinique where his M'man Tine works on a Sugar Cane plantation during the day as Jose and his friends run wild. Tiring of his antics and determined to have Jose grow up to aspire to something other than forced labor; along with his mother, Delia set a plan in action to send Jose to school. Once there, Jose feels alien to this world until he slowly makes friends. Regardless of his social status, Jose likes school and by the time he finishes his time at the first school, he earns a quarter scholarship to attend the Lycee. Delia takes in laundry and ironing to compensate for the remainder of his tuition, until she takes a more lucrative position as a housekeeper.
He fails his exams the first semester but passes his Baccalaureat three months later. As his schooling comes to a close, two of his earlier friends, Carmen and JoJo reenter his life. The three of them share experiences and books. When his M'man Tine dies, both friends are there for him as he grieves her death.
Zobel relates the hardness with which children and adults had to endure in order to survive.

[Nadine Hunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a post slavery story of Jose Hassam, born and raised in Colonial Martinique where his M'man Tine works on a Sugar Cane plantation. The novel exposes colonialism, slavery, poverty, prejudice, colorism, and financial hardships in rural Martinique. It details the harsh conditions of the plantation system, and the life of the working-class poor still working the cane fields, who are paid à pittance and are still enduring harsh living conditions. The value of education was the only hope of bettering Jose’s life. To this end, his mother and grandmother sacrificed their lives to give him the gift of education. This novel makes you appreciate the time you were born and your achievements. A very powerful book about growing up black, inequality, culture, and the importance of perspective and the value of education

[Hopep · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd give it 4.5 if I could.

I'm glad this book got rereleased because it seems to have fallen into relative obscurity in recent years, which is a shame. Particularly in year when we're all discussing the legacy of systemic racism it seems apt to recenter a book that highlights the lives of black people — the painful history of colonialism and racism, but also the vibrancy and joy they had despite it.

I'm knocking off half a star because I thought the intro/forwards were very, very boring in comparison to the book, like someone writing a Lit 101 paper. You can probably skip them, the work itself is pretty accessible.

[Brigid Benson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author's account of his own & other black rural lives in the post slavery period, written over 70 years ago, is still as interesting & insightful as ever. I read it in French as a teenager over 50 years ago! It is v well translated and reminds us vividly of what life was like for those still working the cane fields, paid à pittance, living conditions hardly improved since slavery days. The hard struggle to climb out of misery via éducation.
The détails must feel as relevant to American as European readers, knowing about this can only strengthen our resolve not to slide back into silos of racism and ségrégation.

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[Meriam lahlou · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this as a part of a French teacher's book club. It is a very interesting book especially knowing it is a semi-autobiography. It took me reading a good portion (no chapters in this book) to get into it. It is not a feel good book but the prose is more subtle than it could appear. It really follows the nature of the story. The relationship of the grandson and his grandma is powerful especially as you dig into it. It shows the overwhelming struggles to make a dent into the atrocities of slavery and its dehumanization.

[Laura Beauséjour · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un livre émouvant qui nous plonge dans le quotidien de la Martinique post esclavagiste. On accompagne Hassam tout au long de son enfance, voyant à travers ses yeux la vie des différentes classes sociales. L'histoire interroge également sur la notion de parentalité, sur les perspectives sociales et sur le rôle de l'éducation scolaire dans une société occidentalisée La relation entre Hassam et sa grand-mère est profondément émouvante.

[Nesrine Aouinti · Rating 3 out of 5]

«Je savais déjà par intuition que le diable, la misère et la mort était à peu près le même individu malfaisant et qui s'acharnait après les nègres surtout. Et je me demandais en vain ce que les nègres avaient pu faire au faible au diable et au béké pour être ainsi opprimés par l'un et l'autre. »
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[Cillian De · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really good book. It is the best description of a real childhood as felt by the child that I have read in a long time. Joseph Zobel clearly based Hassan’s story on his own upbringing in rural poverty in Martinique and it paints a detailed picture of that society. It is also warm and moving.

[Ava_h]

“I had never understood why the things I had normally learned with the greatest of pleasure became so unpleasant to me the moment they became part of the syllabus of an examination” (221)

BARS. ABSOLUTE BARS.