La rue Case Nègres

Case Negres Street, by Joseph Zobel

"When the day had been without incident or misfortune, evening would arrive, smiling with tenderness. From as far away as I could see M'man Tine, my grandmother, coming, at the end of the wide path that conveyed the Negroes to the plantation's cane fields and brought them back, I would rush to meet her, imitating the flight of the mansfenil, the gallop of the donkeys, and with cries of joy, leading the whole gang of my little friends who, like me, were waiting for their parents to return. M'man Tine knew that, having come to meet her, I had behaved well during her absence. Then, from the bodice of her dress, she would take some treat and give it to me: a mango, a guava from the icaques, a piece of yam, leftover from her lunch, wrapped in a green leaf; or, even better than all that, a piece of bread... Behind us appeared other groups of workers, and those of my comrades who recognized their parents rushed to meet them, shouting even louder."

Thus begins Rue Cases-Nègres, that great classic of Caribbean literature, in which Joseph Zobel, through the story of his own childhood, describes Martinique in the 1930s, portraying, with the memory of his heart and his wounds, the courage, toughness, and tenderness of the descendants of slaves determined to build a freer and more generous country for their children.