36   Guadeloupe – Maryse Condé – Windward Heights – June 2016 (Score 5.55)

There was a coincidence immediately after I finished this book. I was reading “Half a Life” by V S Naipaul, published in 2001. On page 105 of that book Richard, the publisher of a book by the protagonist, Willie Chandran (an Indian immigrant to the UK) says “One day you might give us a new reading of Wuthering Heights. Heathcliffe was a half Indian child who was found near the docks of Liverpool”.

“Windward Heights” is such a book, published in French in 1995 and English in 1998.

Windward Heights is a re-imagining, in Cuba and Guadeloupe, of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights. At the time of the story a civil war was raging throughout Cuba.

The story opens with Melchier leading a procession, carrying the flag of Chango, his god. We are taken immediately to a much hotter, livelier and colourful world than our own, sometimes dreich and rainy one.

None of this was being enjoyed by the Captain General of Cuba, posted from Spain, Jose de Cépéro. He hated the locals, the freed slaves. De Cépéro had consulted Melchior on several occasions, knowing that Melchior had a reputation as a sorcerer, or “babalawo”. Later, Melchior went to visit Razyé whom he had agreed to initiate into the rites of Chango, before Razyé returned to Guadeloupe. Melchior was murdered on the night of the festival, outside the church of Santo Cristo, leaving Razyé bereft.

Razyé gave a clue to the origin of the whole story, and his character, when he described himself as having been “found on the barren heath and cliffs” as a young child, and named after them.

The story follows the general lines of the original, but with the required changes of character, locale, events etc to give it its new milieu. I enjoyed it, with a score of 7.5, and have put my copy of the original, not read for forty years, near the top of my pile for a re-read.