Overview

Situated in contemporary Martinique, My Heart Beats Fast centers Kim, a young man accused of murdering his father, his sister's partner, and her young son. The narration braids three temporalities: the present of the trial; the recent past of Kim's youth shaped by Martinique's entanglement with late‑stage capitalism and/as neocolonialism; and a longer duration that stretches back to slavery and the plantation, where Kim's Antillean matrilineal origins have their roots. This nonlinear narrative makes generous use of analepses, as the spirits of the ancestors whisper visions and memories to Kim's sister Edith, who attempts to understand what led her brother to commit such a horrific act. In addition to blending elements of realism and the marvelous, My Heart Beats Fast is written in a particularly poetic, urgent yet precise prose that has earned Nadia Chonville many accolades. Chonville's novel is at the vanguard of a new Antillean literature that moves beyond créolité (the last identifiable literary movement in the Antillean canon) in several important ways: First, although it does reflect on the past (as indeed prescribed by the créolistes), it is firmly anchored in the present, which Chonville, a trained social scientist, captures unflinchingly. Second, it complexifies the Antilles gender landscape with characters whose intersectional realities are explored with depth and care.

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9780826508218

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Reviews

""In the line of authors such as Maryse Condé, Nadia Chonville makes her island of Martinique into a setting embodied by her story. Under her pen, we discover an island populated by ghosts, whose children flee in numbers and sometimes never return. In this spirit-filled atmosphere, realities cross and blur, like the boundaries between good and evil. With a knotted stomach, we look for answers, trying to understand without success. Even after we turn the last page, we know that we will keep the very strong emotions felt throughout this great work."" --Marine Stisi, Toute La Culture

Author Information

Nadia Chonville is a Martinican author, researcher, and cultural curator who teaches history and geography at the famed Lycée Schoelcher and the University of the Antilles. In her academic work, she has written extensively on Caribbean heteronormativity and homophobia. Her literary works include short stories, lyrics, and a fantastic trilogy titled Rose de Wégastrie. Corine Labridy is a native Guadeloupean and an assistant professor in the Department of Francophone, Italian, and Germanic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

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