Winner of the 2014 Prix Femina & 2016 French Voices Award

After she is found washed up on shore, Cetoute Olmene Therese, bloody and bruised, recalls the circumstances that led her there. Her voice weaves hauntingly in and out of the narrative, as her story intertwines with those of three generations of women in her family, beginning with Olmene, her grandmother.

Olmene, barely sixteen, catches the eye of the cruel and powerful Tertulien Mesidor, despite the generations-long feud between their families which cast her ancestors into poverty. He promises her shoes, dresses, land,...