Maryse Condé’s Waiting for the Waters to Rise, translated by Richard Philcox, won an English PEN Translates Award in 2020. [“Books are selected for PEN Translates awards on the basis of outstanding literary quality, the strength of the publishing project, and their contribution to UK bibliodiversity.”] The original novel, En attendant la montée des eaux, was published in 2010 (read a review here). The translated novel will be published in the UK in April 2021.
Description: 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.
The novel is available to pre-order at https://www.amazon.com/Waiting-Waters-Rise-Maryse-Cond%C3%A9-ebook/dp/B08C565V7M
