Leonara is a first in francophone Caribbean literature: neither fiction nor biography, this book by sociologist and Creole-culture advocate Dany Bebel-Gisler has elements of both novelistic and documentary style. It has been likened to the Latin-American testimonio genre (testimony novel). The real-life Leonara- model for and subject of this book- told Bebel-Gisler that -in this book made up of my words, it is my very self that is present. You have written the story just as I have told it-

In the course of her life, Leonara has witnessed, from her perspective as the mother of a large...