I've been wanting to read Maryse Condé for quite a while. She has a lot of books that look really interesting, and this is Caribbean Reads month. This one was slow going but I enjoyed her writing. I look forward to reading her new book that was nominated for an award. Thank you netgalley for the eARC.

Both a touching and devastating book exploring the effects of loss and grief on a personal, communal, and national level Done in a deeply personal voice that feels more like a having a conversation than reading a book. Highly recommend.

I think what drew me to pick up this book was the mention of Haiti, as I've not read a book set in that country and know very little about it. Plus, the premise sounded intriguing - an African doctor, Babakar, is left holding a baby after her mother dies in childbirth, and takes it upon himself to return her to her mother's country of Haiti in order to reunite her with her family.

So, on the Haiti aspect this book really delivered. The power struggles, international aid/interference and impact of climate change are all discussed as the story unfolds. But it isn't only Haiti this book takes you to - whilst the second half of the book is all set there, we travel through many different countries on the way and through some thought provoking prose on the nature of belonging, home, displacement and what makes a motherland. This is done not only through the story of Babakar, but his companions - a Palestinian in Haiti, and a Haitian who had fled to Guadalupe. I was glad of this, as I didn't really warm particularly to Babakar.

The story of returning the baby does get a little lost in all that other context though. She, like women in general in this books, is very much just a plot device with which to link the stories of the men together. I wasn't keen on that aspect, and coupled with the lack of warmth I felt for Babakar I found that something in this book just didn't touch me in the way I had hoped it would. It's a solid book, but not one I connected with particularly deeply.

Babakar is a doctor living alone with only his childhood memories of living in Mali. His mother who has been long since dead visit him in his dreams.
One night Babakar is called out to an emergency where a women is in the pains of childbearing. The baby a girl is delivered but unfortunately the mother died. Babakar wraps the baby up in a blanket and leaves with the baby.

The writing is luminous as the reader gets the sense of being in the places that are depicted in the novel. As the scene makes several shifts from Mali to Hati.

The main problem with the novel is the repetitive description of Babakar's mother. Black woman with blue eyes who people believe is a witch.
That can be overlooked.
However the constant use of backstory which accounts for roughly 60% or more of the story cannot be overlooked.
The only thing that the reader can decipher from the multiple backstories is that when colonialism ends its rule in a country then chaos ensues. This is representative of Babakar's background.

Wow Haiti is a /place/ in this book. A. Place. The corruption of Conde's post colonial states is rough. Narratives centered on experiences of being a displaced outsider in harsh places, cities in agony, cities that are barely better than what they already fled. Really good, with each character drawing you into their specific life stories. Nevertheless I finished somewhat discontented, I feel like Conde builds up something that is never delivered and the ending just. Stops. Also, for all the importance women were for the narrators, we sure don't hear from them and the main character is dispiritingly apathetic

The book takes its title from something that the protagonist's friend says about the Caribbean: that climate change will cause the islands to be flooded on day, and sink beneath the waves, and they're all just waiting for teh waters to rise. THis also serves as an excellent metaphor for the lives of the 3 main characters, Babakar, Movar and Fouad, all of whose lives have been displaced by conflict, who find themselves in Haiti, battling the elements, and political instability. Babakar is a doctor from Mali, who is forced to flee because of the Civil War, to his mother's ancestral home of Guadeloupe. He adopts a baby, who he names Anais, and in an attempt to discover more about her family, travels to Haiti. The story is told by a multitude of characters, and everyone that Babakar meets gets to narrate their story. It's an interesting conceit, and one that allows Conde to explore multiple conflicts and its effects on the innocent-colonialism in Guadeloupe, the lives of Palestinian exiles during the civil war in Lebanon when Beirut was turned into a warzone, civil war in Mali, the corrupt tyranny of Papa Doc Duvalier in Haiti, along with an entire cast of fascinating historical figures whom I had never heard of-Louis Delgres, Henri-Christophe, the Bambara EMpire, among others. She traces the effects that Duvalier's regime had on Haiti through the lives of the characters-from its status as a vibrant tourist destination, and Duvalier's interactions with multiple intellectuals of the time such as Cesaire, to the politically motivated murders and the repressive state that was established, that continued with his son. I didn't know of the existence of Labadee-a privately owned part of Haiti, that employs its own security force to prevent Haitians from entering! I should have loved this book-these aren't parts of the world or conflicts written about very often, and at her best, Conde is a brilliantly evocative writer. I cannot quite understand, though, how a woman writer, can write such completely awful, one-dimensional female characters, viewed through the worst sort of male gaze. The female characters barely have any agency, and nearly all exist merely as objects of desire for the male characters. It really takes away from the otherwise fascinating book. I was ultimately disappointed with that, but I'll definitely read Conde's other books, and I'm glad I read this one-it taught me a lot about facets of history I didn't know about at all.

What can I say? It is a true delight when on the very first pages of a novel you find yourself in the hands of a master writer. It is just so relaxing to read with this confidence, I felt comfortable and welcomed because every word shows how obviously Maryse Condé is a well practised and excellent writer - in a good way!
Very casual and off the cuff she just throws all those character s and stories in front of the reader and also trusts you to pick them up with care and understanding.
There are characters with distinct voices, unlikeable ones as well, many, many stories in stories and just an abundance of narration. This is not so much about plot, but it is a collection of life stories, vibrant, colorful harsh, but also clearly fictional in the tradition of the story teller.
If you're open to that - this is you book.

This story follows the character of Babakar, a Doctor from Segu, Mali who delivers babies. In the opening chapter while it pours with rain outside, he is called to attend a birth of a young woman he does not know, but recognises, who does not survive the birth. Understanding that the man who accompanies her Movar, is not the father, he claims the baby as his own, seeing it as a sign, a return.

It does occasionally trouble him, what he has done and sure enough, one day Movar returns and tells him of the promise made to the young mother, to return her child to her family in Haiti.

Though the story follows Babakar, each time we encounter a new character, there is a digression into their backstory(s), so we learn of all these male characters stories, Babkar, Movar, Fouad who will all come together in Haiti, and underlying the visit, this search to find family.

Although the story is about the search for Anais's (the baby) family, for all that this is an employed man raising a young baby on his own, she was remarkably absent, as were her carers, creating a bit of a disconnect, considering the entire motivation for this grand journey was supposedly her well-being, or the pursuit of this promise.

With so much of the novel told in backstory, there was a lot of 'telling' and I found myself reading over parts of those narratives quite quickly as they didn't seem to progress or relate to the story itself. Perhaps there was something universal in the stories of the three main men, in the collapse of their earlier lives that found them seeking solace in each others company, but it didn't work for me as well as I hoped.

It was interesting, having just read Love, Anger, Madness: A Haitian Trilogy by Marie Vieux-Chauvet, to be back in Haiti and to understand more of the references and pick up on the atmosphere of the location, the unpredictability and quasi-fear around certain people, never quite knowing if they are safe or not and that metaphor of the title, suggesting disaster not far off.

Maryse Condé remains a favourite author and I'm looking forward to reading more of her work, last years Crossing the Mangrove was just brilliant as are here childhood essays in Tales from the Heart: True Stories from My Childhood.

Babakar is originally from Mali but when we meet him he is working as a doctor in Guadeloupe. One night he is called to attend a young undocumented migrant from Haiti who is giving birth but he arrives too late to help her. The baby girl lives, however, and Babakar feels compelled to adopt her as there doesn’t seem to be anyone else who could. He later finds out that the mother wanted the child to return to Haiti to be reunited with her family and Babakar decides to do just that. He links up with the Haitian Movar and the Palestinian Fouad and they set off on their quest. This is the bare bones of the narrative, but the novel is about much more, exploring as it does issues of migration, displacement, racism, xenophobia, political corruption and the harsh realities of life in Africa and the Caribbean. Each of the main characters offers the reader different perspectives and each is allowed to tell their own story in their own voice, in quite lengthy chapters. I had a problem with this as not only did their voices all sound very similar, but the insertion of these stories broke up the narrative arc and distracted me from it. Overall I felt that the author tried to include just too much and a narrower focus would have made it easier to engage with the characters. There’s some excellent writing here, nevertheless, and descriptions of life in Haiti is particularly haunting, but for me something was lacking, an emotional connection that I expected to feel with such an emotional subject but which for some reason I just didn’t. Very much worth reading, though.

Disappointment. I began Waiting for the Waters to Rise with great anticipation of a great transcultural read. The opening episode couldn’t be more effective in drawing us in. Then, the book falls victim to the current trend of multiple narrators and multiple time periods, breaking any sense of momentum or connection. I found myself forgetting characters and getting lost in time and place. The strange mix of formal and cliche dictions did not help. As soon as I would become oriented and engaged, the narrator would change. What could have been an amazing contribution to the conversation about colonialism and the plight of refugees ends up being just a disappointment.

Thank you to Maryse Conde, (author), Richard Philcox (translator), World Editions, and NetGalley for an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

Displacement, rootlessness and the quest for roots are the main themes in Maryse Conde’s Waiting for the Waters to Rise. It is the story of Babakar, a gynaecologist of Mali origins in Guadeloupe who fulfils the desire of a dying mother to take her child Anais back to Haiti where roots are, despite the country being ravaged by endless violence. This simple storyline expands to incorporate the life stories of Babakar, his family, and other characters from Africa and the Caribbean.

One of the author’s aims is to expose the devastation of postcolonial states, now struggling with democracy and self-determination and governed by puppets instated by foreign states. We observe the way power corrupts, the extent to which man would go, men’s inability to fight for ideals or think for themselves, self-serving dictators’ utter disregard for their own people, pointless fratricide wars and other niceties. Conde’s political satire is effective and biting, as she attempts to highlight the similarities between dilapidated paradises and generally what is at stake with human nature, feral and corruptible. While the ties and the common legacy of Africa and the Caribbean are definitely worth exploring, this approach tends to erase more local features under the unifying effect of satire.

Conde’s writing is vivid, mesmerising and worth your while. Babakar’s story of displacement is compelling, as he negotiates his identity among rootlessness as someone who “felt no sense of belonging” and national myths and his quest for Anais’s roots. Equally interesting are the stories of his companions. Their insertion makes the novel episodic and picaresque, which as a form befits the theme of rootlessness but makes the plot feel a bit loose.

I am grateful to World Editions for an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

For a novel that hinges so dramatically on the actions of women, Waiting for the Waters to Rise turns out surprisingly to be all about men. Babakar, Movar and their Palestinian friend Fouad all relate their stories to one another in great detail, while the peripheral cast of doctors, soldiers, rebels and politicians is also a largely male ensemble. The female characters in this novel are either dead – including Babakar’s own mother, who appears regularly as a ghost visiting his dreams – or don’t have very long to live, or are figures like Estrella, Anaïs’s mysterious aunt, in the face of whom men feel desire and fear in equal measure. This is surely not an accident: ‘Women stand on the sidelines of History,’ says the narrator casually, but in sidelining them so effectively in her story, Condé has actually underlined their importance.

It is a move that seems characteristic of Condé, who always has something to say even when she appears not to be saying it. Some of the main themes of the novel – racism and bigotry, not to mention how the world’s most developed countries might look on an island like Haiti – are woven so skilfully into the fabric of the narrative as to implicate the reader by catching us out in our prejudices. Whether it is the omniscient narrator or one of the main characters currently telling their story, deft asides about poverty, dirt, the uselessness of women and various other prejudices are inserted with seamless regularity so as to be constantly making us stumble. It is a clever way of asking us to question our own views, forcing the reader to take a step back from a story that otherwise would be nothing but evocative and enjoyable. But darker forces are at work here – namely how humans treat one another on a daily basis – and without being melodramatic or sermonising, Condé makes us see and face up to them.

[. . .]

Her characters struggle to articulate their own experiences of the human condition – in fact, Babakar wishes to be a poet who doesn’t have to use words – making Condé herself seem aware of the limits of language, yet the fact remains that she does have a marvellous way with words. This has been beautifully rendered into English by her husband and long-time translator, Richard Philcox, creating a novel that is strong and vibrant, filled with keen observations and a wry sense of humour. Condé describes the island of Haiti as possessing ‘an explosive, swollen vitality’ and goes on to portray it in exactly these terms – the words leap off the page, gleaming and vivid.

[. . .]

From expert shaping of narrative to firm characterisation and a use of language that comes as a gift to her readers, Maryse Condé is a truly remarkable writer. Absorbing, heart-wrenching and yet filled with hope, touching on a variety of themes that show humanity at its best and worst, Waiting for the Waters to Rise is a novel that has much to teach us.

[extracts from the full review available on my blog]

Thanks to NetGalley and The Publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I'm somewhat ashamed to say this is the first thing I have read by Maryse Condé, but it certainly won't be the last. This is a story of lives lived and uprooted by conflict - pain and suffering but also how they find joy and meaning in all the chaos and what 'home' and 'belonging' means to them. Many cultures are covered in this book and I really loved that. I also appreciated the francophone perspective over my normal anglophone one. Despite some supernatural elements and the bleakness of the individuals backstory and the circumstance they find themselves in, for me the story telling was fantastic, it totally consumed me. However, I can't put my finger on what, but something was missing to make it perfect for me. However, this is a book that will stay with me and I would highly recommend it others.

I am a big Maryse Condé fan. In fact, I’ve read most of her books in the original French, with this being the first I read in translation.

Waiting for the Waters to Rise is a story of displacement and migration, of the search for something to live for. Babakar, a West-African obstetrician, moves around West Africa and eventually to the Caribbean in hopes of finding a place where he can be accepted for who he his.

He makes two unlikely friends, the Haitian Movar and Palestinian Fouad, and through his own and the stories of his companions and people they meet, a world filled with racism, greed, violence, and corruption is laid bare.

I loved the African and Caribbean settings and really got a feel for the despair emanating from places like Haiti; as well as the epic scope of the storytelling––this is what Condé does best.

And yet––I hate to admit it––I felt a bit disappointed by this book. I had such high hopes. But I found it hard to get lost in the story. It was partly its bleakness, partly the sense of total apathy I got from Babakar.

Even though the book is filled with ideologically crazed people, Babakar himself was, as he admits, “not a man of ideals. In [his] opinion, no belief, no religion, no ideology was worth dying for.” And so he floats from country to country, with no true direction or sense of purpose and I, too, much to my disappointment, just couldn’t muster enough enthusiasm for his story.

Well written drew me right in to a very creative novel.A new author for me looking forward to reading more of her books.#netgalley #worldeditions

A story of three people who all find themselves in a common place, each escaping horrors of their own country - its horror and the terrors they were facing. Maryse Conde deftly narrates this story that transcends individualism and elevates identity, familial relationships and what it means to belong.

The characters experience xenophobia, their own personal trauma and horrors and the growing impact of country's changing political landscape. Its at Haiti where the characters all arrive at where the politics of the time impact the characters directly. This constitutes majority of the third act of the story and this is also where the story becomes entangled and a bit confusing. The characters' narration is very rushed however they are all given a pretty powerful ending.

<i>Thank you to Netgalley and World Editions for providing me with a free copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.</i>

A doctor with a habit of ending up in places full of unrest adopts a child based on dreams of his mother, and moves on to another dangerous locale.

We follow Babakar, a doctor, born in Mali from a Guadeloupean mother with blue eyes and a Bambaran father (ethnicity from West Africa). Babakar is a solitary character until he adopts a baby girl from a illegal Haitian woman.
This book is structured in an interesting way as every characters gets to remember their own personal stories. We, then travel to those countries destroyed by war, racism, unforgiven nature (storm, tsunami, flood,,) The characters, Babakar, Mowar, a poor Haitian boy, Fadi, a Palestinian, all shared a friendships. Nothing in common, but the love for this baby Anais, and the fact that none has ever had a lucky break in love, in life.. The book is filled with tragedy, but never gives up on life.
I was absolutely engrossed in this story for hours. Maryse Condé is an exceptional story teller. I can only recommend reading this book not because of the many tropical and topical themes in today’s world, but to discover the poesy of the creole languages, culture and its people resilience.

Thanks to Netgalley and World Editions for this ARC!

I found the style and structure of this novel really intriguing, and enjoyed the way we got to follow the various parts of Babakar's life and history through the eyes of different characters. However, in general I found the scope of the text and the number of characters to be a bit much, and I didn't really engage with the story on any deep level.

For fans of A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma.

Read about 7% of the book. Characters didn't grab me. Seemed amoral. Nothing to make me engage with the character.