Staff Pick
As Slave Old Man runs through the jungle being hunted by a dog and his plantation master, experiencing philosophical revelations about the jungle around him in sensory relationship to his body, Patrick Chamoiseau unravels the reader's mind with hallucinatory prose, executed with the skill of a visionary architect whose sole purpose is to bridge the collision of these forces into a spectacle that alters perceptions as utterly as it transforms black struggle into salvation. That the translation carries over from French so perfectly is equally astonishing. This book is gorgeous, humbling, and unforgettable. Recommended By Aubrey W., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
The "heart-stopping" (The Millions), "richly layered" (Brooklyn Rail), "haunting, beautiful" (BuzzFeed) story of an escaped slave and the killer hound that pursues him
"Slave Old Man is a cloudburst of a novel, swift and compressed — but every page pulses, blood-warm....The prose is so electrifyingly synesthetic that, on more than one occasion, I found myself stopping to rub my eyes in disbelief." Parul Sehgal, The New York Times
Shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, Patrick Chamoiseau's Slave Old Man was published to accolades in hardcover in a brilliant translation by Linda Coverdale, winning the French-American Foundation Translation Prize and chosen as a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2018.
Now in paperback, Slave Old Man 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 early nineteenth-century Martinique, this novel takes us on a unique and moving journey into the heart of Caribbean history.
Review
"...the world Chamoiseau stitches together through the eyes of this aging runaway reveals the enduring cruelty of bondage and the endless creativity of its survivors and their descendants."
Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"...electric and illuminating....Chamoiseau's prose is astounding in its beauty...and he ups the stakes by making this novel a breathtaking thriller, as well."
Publisher Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"Imagine Walt Whitman adapting "Apocalypto" and you might approximate the awe and adrenaline of Chamoiseau's action pastoral."
The New York Times Book Review
About the Author
Patrick Chamoiseau is the author of Texaco, which won the Prix Goncourt and was a New York Times Notable Book, as well as Creole Folktales and Slave Old Man (The New Press), among other works. He lives in Martinique.