Crossing the Mangrove

A masterly storyteller

New York Times Book Review

A story of life in all its flavours . . . a fluid, mobile narrative, passing easily from person to person. Fascinating and beautiful

John Self, The Observer

A treasure of world literature, writing from the center of the African diaspora with brilliance and a profound understanding of all humanity

Russell Banks

Condé writes elegantly in a style that beautifully survives translation from the French. . . She gives readers a flavor of the French and Creole stew that is the Guadeloupan tongue. In so doing, Conde conveys the many subtle distinctions of color, class, and language that made up this society

Chicago Tribune

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

The grand queen, the empress, of Caribbean literature

Fiammetta Rocco, Guardian