![]() Tété is a mother to Dona Eugenia's son Maurice, who becomes inseparable from the daughter she subsequently bears her master, Rosette. When Tété gives her master a son, Jean-Martin is taken from her and raised (unbeknownst to Tété) by Violette, who has married Captain Etienne Relais but is unable to bear children. ![]() Rhythm is born on the island beneath the sea it shakes the earth, it cuts through me like a lightning bolt and rises toward the sky, carrying with it my sorrows so that Papa Bondye can chew them, swallow them, and leave me clean and happy.' Honoré, the slave who cared for her as a child, told her to ' Dance, dance, Zarité, the slave who dances is free. Looking back on her life, she tells us that ' Music is a wind that blows away the years, memories, and fear, that crouching animal I carry inside me. Music - and the drums - have given Zarité the strength to survive and thrive through difficult times. ![]() ![]() ![]() As a child in 1770s Saint-Domingue - ' which would become the richest colony in the world', generating a third of France's wealth from the labor of slaves - Tété is purchased by Toulouse Valmorain's mistress (much admired free cocotte Violette Boisier), to care for his mentally frail wife, Dona Eugenia on his sugar plantation of Saint Lazare. In Island Beneath the Sea, Isabel Allende tells the bitter-sweet story of Zarité (known as Tété), the daughter of an African mother and the white sailor who raped her. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |