“This was not the first time the Reverend Father Huchard, a longstanding member of the African Missionary Society in Lyons, had landed on these shores.”
"Inspired by a tragedy in the late twentieth century, Conde sets this fiction in the late nineteenth century with her characteristic blend of magical realism and fantasy. Conde imagines Celanire: a woman who was mutilated at birth and left for dead. Mysterious, seductive, and disarming, she is driven to uncover the truth of her past at any cost. " "On one hand, Celanire appears to be a saint; she is a tireless worker who has turned numerous neglected institutions into vibrant schools for motherless children. But she is also a woman apprehended by demons, as death and misfortune seem to follow in her wake. Who Slashed Celanire's Throat? follows both her triumphs and her trials as this survivor becomes a beautiful and powerful woman who travels from Guadeloupe to West Africa to Peru in order to solve the mysteries of her past and avenge the crimes committed against her. "--BOOK JACKET.