I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem

Tituba is the name, preserved in historical records, of a Black slave from Barbados who by a twist of fate ended up in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. In the puritanical town, her skin colour sparks terror, and mass hysteria culminates in the infamous witch trials. Guadeloupean writer Maryse Condé lets Tituba tell her own story in an adventurous blend of fantasy and historical fact.

While the fate of the real Tituba remains unknown, Condé’s heroine escapes the gallows in the novel and returns to her native Barbados, just as the first slave rebellions are breaking out…

In this novel about Tituba’s journey from an exotic island to the cold New World and back, Maryse Condé touches on themes of colonialism, human freedom, and the plight of women. Her historical fiction is particularly characterised by a distinctive irony, which she applies both to the harrowing moments of slaves’ lives and, indirectly, to contemporary efforts to right historical wrongs. The book has been translated into thirteen languages.

Romantic and horrifying, serious and playful, this now-cult novel is written by an author awarded the prize of the French Academy as well as the New Academy Prize in Literature (the alternative Nobel Prize) in 2018. It is published with an afterword by Jovanka Šotolová.