Old Slave and the Mastiff

From one of the most innovative and subversive novelists writing in French, a "writer of exceptional and original gifts" (The New York Times), whose Texaco won the Prix Goncourt and has been translated into fourteen languages, Patrick Chamoiseau's The Old Slave is a gripping, profoundly unsettling story of an elderly slave's daring escape into the wild from a plantation in Martinique, with his master and a fearsome hound on his heels.

We follow them into a lush rain forest where nature is beyond all human control: sinister, yet entrancing and even exhilarating, because the old man's flight to freedom will transform them all in truly astonishing—even otherworldly—ways, as the overwhelming physical presence of the forest reshapes reality and time itself. Chamoiseau's exquisitely rendered new novel is an adventure for all time, one that fearlessly portrays the demonic cruelties of the slave trade and its human costs in vivid, sometimes hallucinatory prose. Offering a loving and mischievous tribute to the creole culture of Martinique and brilliantly translated by Linda Coverdale, this novel takes us on a unique and moving journey into the heart of Caribbean history.

De la unul dintre cei mai inovatori si subversivi romancieri care scriu in franceza, un „scriitor de daruri exceptionale si originale” (The New York Times), al carui Texaco a castigat Premiul Goncourt si a fost tradus in paisprezece limbi, The Old Slave de Patrick Chamoiseau este un poveste captivanta, profund tulburatoare, despre scaderea indrazneata a unui sclav in varsta dintr-o plantatie din Martinica, cu stapanul sau si un caine infricosator pe calcaie. Le urmam intr-o padure tropicala luxurianta in care natura este dincolo de orice control uman: sinistru, totusi fascinant si chiar inveselitor, pentru ca zborul batranului spre libertate ii va transforma pe toti in moduri cu adevarat uimitoare - chiar si in alte lumi, intrucat prezenta fizica coplesitoare a padurii remodeleaza realitatea si timpul in sine.