Waiting for the Waters to Rise - Paperback

by Maryse Condé (Author), Richard Philcox (Translator)

Babakar is a doctor living alone, with only the memories of his childhood in Mali. In his dreams, he receives visits from his blue-eyed mother and his ex-lover Azelia, both now gone, as are the hopes and aspirations he's carried with him since his arrival in Guadeloupe. Until, one day, the child Ana s comes into his life, forcing him to abandon his solitude. Ana s's Haitian mother died in childbirth, leaving her daughter destitute--now Babakar is all she has, and he wants to offer this little girl a future. Together they fly to Haiti, a beautiful, mysterious island plagued by violence, government corruption, and rebellion. Once there, Babakar and his two friends, the Haitian Movar and the Palestinian Fouad, three different identities looking for a more compassionate world, begin a desperate search for Ana s's family.

Front Jacket

A mesmerizing novel from the winner of the Alternative Nobel Prize in Literature

Babakar is a doctor living alone, with only the memories of his childhood in Mali. In his dreams, he receives visits from his blue-eyed mother and his ex-lover Azelia, both now gone, as are the hopes and aspirations he's carried with him since his arrival in Guadeloupe. Until, one day, the child Anaïs comes into his life, forcing him to abandon his solitude. Anaïs's Haitian mother died in childbirth, leaving her daughter destitute--now Babakar is all she has, and he wants to offer this little girl a future. Together they fly to Haiti, a beautiful, mysterious island plagued by violence, government corruption, and rebellion. Once there, Babakar and his two friends, the Haitian Movar and the Palestinian Fouad, three different identities looking for a more compassionate world, begin a desperate search for Anaïs's family.

"Maryse Condé's prodigious fictional universes are founded on a radical and generative disregard for boundaries based on geography, religion, history, race, and gender."
ANGELA Y. DAVIS

"Maryse Condé is a treasure of world literature, writing from the center of the African diaspora with brilliance and a profound understanding of all humanity."
RUSSELL BANKS

Author Biography

Maryse Condé was born in Guadeloupe in 1937 as the youngest of eight siblings. She earned her MA and PhD in Comparative Literature at Paris-Sorbonne University and went on to have a distinguished academic career, receiving the title of Professor Emerita of French at Columbia University in New York, where she taught and lived for many years. She has also lived in various West African countries, most notably in Mali, where she gained inspiration for her worldwide bestseller Segu, for which she was awarded the African Literature Prize and several other respected French awards. Condé was awarded the 2018 New Academy Prize (or "Alternative Nobel") in Literature for her oeuvre. She also received the Grand-Croix de l'ordre national du Mérite from President Emmanuel Macron in 2020. Her latest novel, The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana, is also available in English from World Editions.