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Paule Constant. La fille du Gobernator: Paris. Gallimard. 1994. 186 pages. 90 F. ISBN 2-070-73976-7.
From Ouregano in 1980 (Prix Valery-Larbaud; see WLT 55:3, p. 424) to Le grand Ghapal in 1991 (Prix Gabrielle d'Estres; see WLT 67:1, p. 145), each of Paule Constant's novels has left a memorable impact on its readers. Such is bound to be the case again with her sixth novel, La fille du Gobernator, full of intense drama, pathos, and dark humor. Its topic relates to the author's well-known interest in childhood and education, exemplified in her major scholarly work, Un monde a l'usage des demoiselles (1987),which won her the prestigious Grand Prix de l'Academie Francaise de l'Essai. Set in French Guiana, long known as a "green hell" and a dreaded penal colony, La fille du Gobernator (the title rings like a clarion call) is a comedy of horrors, as corrosive as Esprit blanc (White Spirit; see WLT 64:3, p. 437), the 1990 novel for which Constant was awarded four literary prizes, including the Grand Prix du Roman from the French Academy. Both novels are equally original in concept and execution. La fille du Cobernator somehow allies, in surprising harmony, such contradictory elements as classicism, the baroque, and modernism with...