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This wild and
entertaining novel expands on the true story of the West Indian slave
Tituba, who was accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, arrested
in 1692, and forgotten in jail until the general amnesty for witches
two years later.
Maryse Condé brings
Tituba out of historical silence and creates for her a fictional
childhood, adolescence, and old age. She turns her into what she calls
"a sort of female hero, an epic heroine, like the legendary ‘Nanny
of the maroons,’" who, schooled in the sorcery and magical ritual
of obeah, is arrested for healing members of the family that owns her.
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