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Windward Heights
Winner of the 2018 New Academy Prize in Literature
Prizewinning writer Maryse Condé reimagines Emily Brontë’s passionate novel as a tale of obsessive love between the "African" Razyé and Cathy, the half-Creole daughter of the man who takes Razyé in and raises him, but whose treatment goads him into rebellious flight. Retaining the emotional power of the original, Condé shows Caribbean society in the wake of emancipation.
Prizewinning writer Maryse Condé reimagines Emily Brontë’s passionate novel as a tale of obsessive love between the "African" Razyé and Cathy, the half-Creole daughter of the man who takes Razyé in and raises him, but whose treatment goads him into rebellious flight. Retaining the emotional power of the original, Condé shows Caribbean society in the wake of emancipation.
384 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1999
About the author
Maryse Condé
82 books805 followersMaryse Condé was a Guadeloupean, French language author of historical fiction, best known for her novel Segu. Maryse Condé was born as Maryse Boucolon at Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, the youngest of eight children. In 1953, her parents sent her to study at Lycée Fénelon and Sorbonne in Paris, where she majored in English. In 1959, she married Mamadou Condé, an Guinean actor. After graduating, she taught in Guinea, Ghana, and Senegal. In 1981, she divorced, but the following year married Richard Philcox, English language translator of most of her novels.
Condé's novels explore racial, gender, and cultural issues in a variety of historical eras and locales, including the Salem witch trials in I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem and the 19th century Bambara Empire of Mali in Segu.
In addition to her writings, Condé had a distinguished academic career. In 2004 she retired from Columbia University as Professor Emeritus of French. She had previously taught at the University of California, Berkeley, UCLA, the Sorbonne, The University of Virginia, and the University of Nanterre.
In March 2007, Condé was the keynote speaker at Franklin College Switzerland's Caribbean Unbound III conference, in Lugano, Switzerland.
Condé's novels explore racial, gender, and cultural issues in a variety of historical eras and locales, including the Salem witch trials in I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem and the 19th century Bambara Empire of Mali in Segu.
In addition to her writings, Condé had a distinguished academic career. In 2004 she retired from Columbia University as Professor Emeritus of French. She had previously taught at the University of California, Berkeley, UCLA, the Sorbonne, The University of Virginia, and the University of Nanterre.
In March 2007, Condé was the keynote speaker at Franklin College Switzerland's Caribbean Unbound III conference, in Lugano, Switzerland.
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August 16, 2019
Windward Heights
is a retelling of Wuthering Heights, set in the Caribbean just after the abolition of slavery in the late 19th and early 20th century. In Maryse Condé’s hands the classic gothic tragedy becomes more politically charged, taking in decades of turbulent history and social change in Guadeloupe, Cuba and surrounding islands.
While there has been much debate over Heathcliff’s ethnicity in Emily Brontë’s original novel, here Condé replaces subtext with explication. Her Cathy is mixed race, and light-skinned, Razyé (the Heathcliff of the story) is a dark-skinned black man, the de Linsseuil family (standing in for the Lintons) are white Creoles. The entanglements between them, and the generation that follows, are a minefield of social transgressions. Condé explores both the public scandals and internalised racism in a way that is not exactly subtle, but its strength lies in showing the myriad of forms this can take; how complicated and individuated the politics of race can be.
Chapters of third-person narration are interspersed with first-person POVs from an assortment of characters. Most of these voices come from the oppressed underclasses, mainly servants (these side-characters are even more interesting and memorable than the protagonists). It’s as if Condé was not content with one Nelly Dean and so splintered her into a dozen different people, in order to better tell the history of the islands from a range of inhabitants. As a post-colonial reclaiming of historical voices this works well.
The book is not without weaknesses. Its melodrama can at times be lurid and overblown (possibly to be expected, given the source material). The technique of reframing events through multiple viewpoints adds complexity but it also creates repetition and slows the pace at key moments, robbing the story of some narrative drive. And the translation lacks polish, in my opinion (nb. it was translated by Condé’s husband).
The passion/obsession of the central characters is dimmed compared to Brontë’s version; merely a catalyst for events rather than the book’s beating heart, and is de-centred in favour of culture and politics. For instance, Razyé exploits simmering racial tensions and socialist uprisings in order to prosecute his grudge against the de Linsseuils, and he explores santeria in his grief over Cathy’s death. Where Wuthering Heights is personal, almost claustrophobic, Windward Heights is social, polyphonic and sweeping. And I think I enjoyed it all the more because of this. It’s a compelling read and just as worthy of attention as the more well-known Brontë reboot, Wide Sargasso Sea. 3.5 stars.
While there has been much debate over Heathcliff’s ethnicity in Emily Brontë’s original novel, here Condé replaces subtext with explication. Her Cathy is mixed race, and light-skinned, Razyé (the Heathcliff of the story) is a dark-skinned black man, the de Linsseuil family (standing in for the Lintons) are white Creoles. The entanglements between them, and the generation that follows, are a minefield of social transgressions. Condé explores both the public scandals and internalised racism in a way that is not exactly subtle, but its strength lies in showing the myriad of forms this can take; how complicated and individuated the politics of race can be.
Chapters of third-person narration are interspersed with first-person POVs from an assortment of characters. Most of these voices come from the oppressed underclasses, mainly servants (these side-characters are even more interesting and memorable than the protagonists). It’s as if Condé was not content with one Nelly Dean and so splintered her into a dozen different people, in order to better tell the history of the islands from a range of inhabitants. As a post-colonial reclaiming of historical voices this works well.
The book is not without weaknesses. Its melodrama can at times be lurid and overblown (possibly to be expected, given the source material). The technique of reframing events through multiple viewpoints adds complexity but it also creates repetition and slows the pace at key moments, robbing the story of some narrative drive. And the translation lacks polish, in my opinion (nb. it was translated by Condé’s husband).
The passion/obsession of the central characters is dimmed compared to Brontë’s version; merely a catalyst for events rather than the book’s beating heart, and is de-centred in favour of culture and politics. For instance, Razyé exploits simmering racial tensions and socialist uprisings in order to prosecute his grudge against the de Linsseuils, and he explores santeria in his grief over Cathy’s death. Where Wuthering Heights is personal, almost claustrophobic, Windward Heights is social, polyphonic and sweeping. And I think I enjoyed it all the more because of this. It’s a compelling read and just as worthy of attention as the more well-known Brontë reboot, Wide Sargasso Sea. 3.5 stars.
July 18, 2022
A professor of French Caribbean literature at Columbia University and a prize-winning author whose novels (including I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem and Segu) draw upon African and Caribbean history, Condé sets her latest offering – a complex reworking of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights – at the turn of the 19th century, a period of socialist organizing and social unrest in the Caribbean.
Windward Heights (La Migration des Coeurs) opens in Cuba, shortly after the death of the revolutionary José Marti. Razyé, a young man who, as a foundling, was named for the Razyé, or heath, on which he was discovered in Guadeloupe, has decided to return there and exact revenge from Aymeric de Linsseuil, the rich Creole who married Razyé’s beloved Catherine Gagneur, the daughter of the man who raised Razyé. He achieves vengeance by marrying Aymeric’s youngest sister, Irmine, but only after impregnating Catherine, who dies giving birth to their daughter, Cathy.
Describing a social and political moment far more complex than Brontë’s, Condé introduces a host of first-person narrations by servants, fishwives and hired hands, which are the most winning passages in the novel. Condé clearly knows how to weave a large and beautiful tapestry of diverse characters, as she has shown in her previous books, so it’s no surprise that all characters and setting of Windward Heights come to life through the page.
In a 2016 interview with Françoise Pfaff, Condé explains the title of her novel: “I saw in this title (La Migration des Coeurs) a way of expressing that history was repeating itself; there was a first generation with Cathy who was loved by Razyé and by Linsseuil, and a second generation with Cathy II, her daughter, loved by Razyé II.” In the same interview, Maryse Condé emphasizes the Caribbean dimension of her inspiration: “I saw that a West Indian woman, Jean Rhys, has written a book – Wide Sargasso Sea – a reimagination of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. From that, I better understood my passion for Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.”
The parallels to Wuthering Heights are crystal clear: In Condé’s version, Heathcliff appears as Razyé, an angry and often brutal Black man. When Cathy, the “mulatto” daughter of the man who adopted him, spurns his love to enter “the world of whiteness” through marriage to a Creole plantation owner, Razyé’s fury erupts, just as Heathcliff’s did more than a century earlier.
Razyé represents an amoral (and at times immoral) force of destruction. Neither colonial nor revolutionary, he burns poor villages in Cuba for the Spanish army during the War for Cuban Independence as readily as he joins the socialists in burning sugarcane fields in post-abolition Guadeloupe. In his personal life, he beats and ignores his children, abuses his wife, and gains his fortune by ruining others—rich plantation owners and struggling up-and-coming leftist politicians alike—at the card table; in short, he dedicates his life to toppling what others have built, without seeming to care about building anything of his own to replace it. Nor is he personally exempt from the decline of entropy, as he finishes his life at a relatively young age, thoroughly depleted. After years of failed attempts to contact his dear departed Cathy, he finds himself “fatigué de trainer [s]on corps partout où [il va.]”
Part of Condé’s achievement in this book is that she evokes this personal vengeance amid the wider social and racial conflagrations that were blowing across the Antilles at the time. She explores and deepens the relationships of domination, whether social or racial, the obstacles to social mobility and a Caribbean society racially divided and impregnated with racist prejudices, installed by the dissemination of slave and colonialist ideologies. Through the interactions between her Black, mixed-race and white characters, Condé exposes mentalities shaped by racism that have become ordinary, particularly the internalization of stigmatizing representations by the people who are its victims.
In addition, she gives a voice to the “invisible”: women and children. Condé’s view from the lower depths of society finds its most eloquent embodiment, finally, in several women whose hopes, like the island, go up in smoke. Cathy’s daughter, who will suffer the consequences of her mother’s choices, reflects: “What is love? A bonfire of fluttering leaves that you light in the evening and in the morning is nothing more than a heap of ashes.”
Personally, I really enjoyed the book and how easy it was to get immersed in its atmosphere. However, I have to admit that reading it in French proved to be quite the chore, so I will probably opt for an English or German translation should I ever reread this book.
Windward Heights (La Migration des Coeurs) opens in Cuba, shortly after the death of the revolutionary José Marti. Razyé, a young man who, as a foundling, was named for the Razyé, or heath, on which he was discovered in Guadeloupe, has decided to return there and exact revenge from Aymeric de Linsseuil, the rich Creole who married Razyé’s beloved Catherine Gagneur, the daughter of the man who raised Razyé. He achieves vengeance by marrying Aymeric’s youngest sister, Irmine, but only after impregnating Catherine, who dies giving birth to their daughter, Cathy.
Only the departed remain handsome and desired forever.Stricken by grief for his beloved Cathy and full of loathing for the people he blames for their separation and death, Razyé lives on, trying to learn the arts of Santéria – Africn diasporic religion that developed in Cuba in the late 19th century – so that he might resurrect Catherine and become wealthy in the process. He passes on his hatred of America to his first born, the so-called Razyé II. Eventually, Cathy and Razyé II meet and fall in love, but the scars left by one generation are borne by the next, and the two cannot achieve happiness.
Describing a social and political moment far more complex than Brontë’s, Condé introduces a host of first-person narrations by servants, fishwives and hired hands, which are the most winning passages in the novel. Condé clearly knows how to weave a large and beautiful tapestry of diverse characters, as she has shown in her previous books, so it’s no surprise that all characters and setting of Windward Heights come to life through the page.
In a 2016 interview with Françoise Pfaff, Condé explains the title of her novel: “I saw in this title (La Migration des Coeurs) a way of expressing that history was repeating itself; there was a first generation with Cathy who was loved by Razyé and by Linsseuil, and a second generation with Cathy II, her daughter, loved by Razyé II.” In the same interview, Maryse Condé emphasizes the Caribbean dimension of her inspiration: “I saw that a West Indian woman, Jean Rhys, has written a book – Wide Sargasso Sea – a reimagination of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. From that, I better understood my passion for Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.”
The parallels to Wuthering Heights are crystal clear: In Condé’s version, Heathcliff appears as Razyé, an angry and often brutal Black man. When Cathy, the “mulatto” daughter of the man who adopted him, spurns his love to enter “the world of whiteness” through marriage to a Creole plantation owner, Razyé’s fury erupts, just as Heathcliff’s did more than a century earlier.
Razyé represents an amoral (and at times immoral) force of destruction. Neither colonial nor revolutionary, he burns poor villages in Cuba for the Spanish army during the War for Cuban Independence as readily as he joins the socialists in burning sugarcane fields in post-abolition Guadeloupe. In his personal life, he beats and ignores his children, abuses his wife, and gains his fortune by ruining others—rich plantation owners and struggling up-and-coming leftist politicians alike—at the card table; in short, he dedicates his life to toppling what others have built, without seeming to care about building anything of his own to replace it. Nor is he personally exempt from the decline of entropy, as he finishes his life at a relatively young age, thoroughly depleted. After years of failed attempts to contact his dear departed Cathy, he finds himself “fatigué de trainer [s]on corps partout où [il va.]”
Part of Condé’s achievement in this book is that she evokes this personal vengeance amid the wider social and racial conflagrations that were blowing across the Antilles at the time. She explores and deepens the relationships of domination, whether social or racial, the obstacles to social mobility and a Caribbean society racially divided and impregnated with racist prejudices, installed by the dissemination of slave and colonialist ideologies. Through the interactions between her Black, mixed-race and white characters, Condé exposes mentalities shaped by racism that have become ordinary, particularly the internalization of stigmatizing representations by the people who are its victims.
In addition, she gives a voice to the “invisible”: women and children. Condé’s view from the lower depths of society finds its most eloquent embodiment, finally, in several women whose hopes, like the island, go up in smoke. Cathy’s daughter, who will suffer the consequences of her mother’s choices, reflects: “What is love? A bonfire of fluttering leaves that you light in the evening and in the morning is nothing more than a heap of ashes.”
Personally, I really enjoyed the book and how easy it was to get immersed in its atmosphere. However, I have to admit that reading it in French proved to be quite the chore, so I will probably opt for an English or German translation should I ever reread this book.
August 16, 2019
3.5 rounded up
I was quite pleased when I stumbled on this retelling of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. I had read Maryse Conde while in college and enjoyed the richness of her writing and the many layered meanings I was able to pull from her stories. Here she has refashioned this classic story into one that not only deals with the cost of revenge but the generational curse of slavery and racism.
I was quite pleased when I stumbled on this retelling of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. I had read Maryse Conde while in college and enjoyed the richness of her writing and the many layered meanings I was able to pull from her stories. Here she has refashioned this classic story into one that not only deals with the cost of revenge but the generational curse of slavery and racism.
January 23, 2020
Update: January 23, 2019.
Emily Brontë wrote of violent, obsessive passion mired in the classism, sexism, xenophobia, and addiction in an English village backwater, contained in a favoured servant’s tongue. The slip to a tenant’s mean, self-involved mental energy served as no boon, no invigorative jolt to proceedings. If Wuthering Heights is the wind’s dull roar Windward Heights is the source.
In an inversion of this ordered system–the original and the retelling–Condé saw the dark moor and formed a Caribbean cosmos in 19th century Spanish Cuba, British Dominica and primarily in the French Guadeloupe islands: from Papaye nestled in the volcanic hillside to the arid soil and wind beaten razyés at Grand-Fonds-les-Mangles. Amongst this varied terrain Condé voiced a multitude: Nelly, Catherine, Razyé (the Heathcliff), his wife Irmine, her brother Catherine’s husband, their children, several named servants, politicians, and friends.
The basic story remains the same. Hubert Gagneur, “a tallow-coloured mulatto”, one day brought home a “little black boy or Indian half-caste”, and the story continues. What Brontë slyly hinted at Condé states baldly and in the loaded language of the time. Pretty much everything Wuthering Heights hinted at Windward saturates in technicolour: racism, classism, white feminism, misogynoir, sex, toxic masculinity, homosexuality, and even a few glances at genderqueerness.
I don’t know why we don’t hear and read more about this novel. It is glorious, messy, shocking, and explosive, with a narrative that strode beyond its predecessor’s confines into new spheres. If you considered historical fiction to be a soft genre meant to neatly carry you through specific highlights as you cry and tut tut at humanity’s cruelty before it ended with the usual bromides about love, family, and the resilient human spirit, drink the tea before you start this book. I don’t want you to mess up your copy.
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4.5 ⭐
You know the drill by now. Need to think about my written response. It basically blew Wuthering Heights out of the water, sky high. Don't even mention them in the same sentence unless it's to genuflect in front of Windward's messy (it is messy, I have questions) greatness.
Emily Brontë wrote of violent, obsessive passion mired in the classism, sexism, xenophobia, and addiction in an English village backwater, contained in a favoured servant’s tongue. The slip to a tenant’s mean, self-involved mental energy served as no boon, no invigorative jolt to proceedings. If Wuthering Heights is the wind’s dull roar Windward Heights is the source.
In an inversion of this ordered system–the original and the retelling–Condé saw the dark moor and formed a Caribbean cosmos in 19th century Spanish Cuba, British Dominica and primarily in the French Guadeloupe islands: from Papaye nestled in the volcanic hillside to the arid soil and wind beaten razyés at Grand-Fonds-les-Mangles. Amongst this varied terrain Condé voiced a multitude: Nelly, Catherine, Razyé (the Heathcliff), his wife Irmine, her brother Catherine’s husband, their children, several named servants, politicians, and friends.
The basic story remains the same. Hubert Gagneur, “a tallow-coloured mulatto”, one day brought home a “little black boy or Indian half-caste”, and the story continues. What Brontë slyly hinted at Condé states baldly and in the loaded language of the time. Pretty much everything Wuthering Heights hinted at Windward saturates in technicolour: racism, classism, white feminism, misogynoir, sex, toxic masculinity, homosexuality, and even a few glances at genderqueerness.
I don’t know why we don’t hear and read more about this novel. It is glorious, messy, shocking, and explosive, with a narrative that strode beyond its predecessor’s confines into new spheres. If you considered historical fiction to be a soft genre meant to neatly carry you through specific highlights as you cry and tut tut at humanity’s cruelty before it ended with the usual bromides about love, family, and the resilient human spirit, drink the tea before you start this book. I don’t want you to mess up your copy.
Bookstagram | Twitter
4.5 ⭐
You know the drill by now. Need to think about my written response. It basically blew Wuthering Heights out of the water, sky high. Don't even mention them in the same sentence unless it's to genuflect in front of Windward's messy (it is messy, I have questions) greatness.
December 19, 2019
Windward Heights (translated from French) by Guadeloupean author Maryse Condé is a retelling of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. It feels wrong even calling it a retelling because Condé truly made this her own.
If Wuthering Heights was a dried fruit pit left in the cold to decay and wither, Windward Heights is the first bite of a ripe mango on a blistering day.
I truly felt transported every time I picked up this novel. Windward is set in the Caribbean in 19th century shortly after the abolition of slavery. We witness the intense relationship between Cathy and Razyé and all of the horror that follows as Razyé enacts revenge everywhere he goes through sheer force and growing political power. Condé does not follow Brontës subtle hints at race and class, instead we are plunged headfirst into racial disparity and blustering, unsettling passages of time in a slowly changing society.
As I’ve hinted, Windward Heights is very different from Wuthering Heights. (DECOLONIZED AF 👏🏽. Ahem, pls excuse my outburst.) Though they both follow a similar (at times) story line that is often theatrically dramatic and focus on the relationship of two troubled lovers, Windward chose to only highlight this tryst briefly and instead delves more into racism, religion, politics and stories told by oppressed narrators which I think made for an all-encompassing read although love and what binds us is still a recurring theme.
“What is love? A bonfire of fluttering leaves that you light in the evening and in the morning is nothing more than a heap of ashes.''
I am so impressed by Condé’s writing and I highly recommend this. It’s quite an intense read and for that reason I did make progress quite slowly.
If Wuthering Heights was a dried fruit pit left in the cold to decay and wither, Windward Heights is the first bite of a ripe mango on a blistering day.
I truly felt transported every time I picked up this novel. Windward is set in the Caribbean in 19th century shortly after the abolition of slavery. We witness the intense relationship between Cathy and Razyé and all of the horror that follows as Razyé enacts revenge everywhere he goes through sheer force and growing political power. Condé does not follow Brontës subtle hints at race and class, instead we are plunged headfirst into racial disparity and blustering, unsettling passages of time in a slowly changing society.
As I’ve hinted, Windward Heights is very different from Wuthering Heights. (DECOLONIZED AF 👏🏽. Ahem, pls excuse my outburst.) Though they both follow a similar (at times) story line that is often theatrically dramatic and focus on the relationship of two troubled lovers, Windward chose to only highlight this tryst briefly and instead delves more into racism, religion, politics and stories told by oppressed narrators which I think made for an all-encompassing read although love and what binds us is still a recurring theme.
“What is love? A bonfire of fluttering leaves that you light in the evening and in the morning is nothing more than a heap of ashes.''
I am so impressed by Condé’s writing and I highly recommend this. It’s quite an intense read and for that reason I did make progress quite slowly.
July 2, 2021
Magnificent. A masterpiece.
'Only the departed remain handsome and desired forever.'
Condé is masterful. The depth of description in her prose and the passion of her dialogue, set against the backdrop of islands still yoked to the hierarchy of colonialism even while fighting for freedom and autonomy heightened and made this read resonant.
I adore an author who is so attuned and aware of the space from which she writes and represents, which translates to rich cultural context and portrayal. Condé does this in the first few chapters of this lush novel.
The threads of desire, love, hate, revenge, socio-economic, and political change rage through this novel, making it addictive, instructive, and complex. Condé writes with mastery, unveiling and coiling the tethers of her characters and their situations to the times in which they live.
Such attention to detail with respect to the changing landscape of Guadeloupe as Slavery is abolished and new ways of working and interacting must now be adapted and adjusted to. The racial tensions that never go away, the observance of old ways and rituals makes the prose vibrate with nuance and tension.
The contour and social hierarchies of the island also play a huge part in the foundation of the story and Condé writes the colourism, familial expectations and desires, birth of political socialism, neglect, obsession, and unhealthy attachments sharply and without apology. Her style is heady with history and social significance.
Condé renders her characters with such rawness, that one can feel their desperation to escape a destiny that seems to have been carved out for them because of their birth, skin colour, and name; the reader is pulled along as they claw their way to a freedom that they are able to grasp.
'Only the departed remain handsome and desired forever.'
Condé is masterful. The depth of description in her prose and the passion of her dialogue, set against the backdrop of islands still yoked to the hierarchy of colonialism even while fighting for freedom and autonomy heightened and made this read resonant.
I adore an author who is so attuned and aware of the space from which she writes and represents, which translates to rich cultural context and portrayal. Condé does this in the first few chapters of this lush novel.
The threads of desire, love, hate, revenge, socio-economic, and political change rage through this novel, making it addictive, instructive, and complex. Condé writes with mastery, unveiling and coiling the tethers of her characters and their situations to the times in which they live.
Such attention to detail with respect to the changing landscape of Guadeloupe as Slavery is abolished and new ways of working and interacting must now be adapted and adjusted to. The racial tensions that never go away, the observance of old ways and rituals makes the prose vibrate with nuance and tension.
The contour and social hierarchies of the island also play a huge part in the foundation of the story and Condé writes the colourism, familial expectations and desires, birth of political socialism, neglect, obsession, and unhealthy attachments sharply and without apology. Her style is heady with history and social significance.
Condé renders her characters with such rawness, that one can feel their desperation to escape a destiny that seems to have been carved out for them because of their birth, skin colour, and name; the reader is pulled along as they claw their way to a freedom that they are able to grasp.
August 22, 2015
I thought I would love this book, but I remained somewhat disappointed after I finished it. If you're thirsty for Guadeloupean literature, Windward Heights is a novel that will quench it. I wanted to read a book rich in French Caribbean culture, and, in that sense, Windward Heights was a satisfying read.
Windward Heights is a Caribbean retelling of Wuthering Heights. However, while the novel is rich in Guadeloupean culture and history, the main plot offers no surprises if you're familiar with Emily Brönte's novel.
I think an issue with this novel is that it is too ambitious. Not only is the story of Razyé and Cathy, but also the story of Guadeloupe. It is definitely interesting to learn about all those facts, but I wish the only focus had been the story of Razyé and Cathy. There are too many characters in the book, whose only purpose is to give context to the novel, and, by the middle of the book, this becomes a bit tiresome, regardless of the interesting facts they have to tell. Simone Schwarz-Bart's novel "The Bridge of Beyond" is more effective in telling a story through the history of Guadeloupe.
Finally, dialogues are scarce, which makes the novel almost 350 pages of narration. Don't get me wrong, Maryse Condé uses beautiful language and it never feels like reading a history book, but I am not fond of so much narration.
Again, Windward Heights is a novel worth reading, but I prefer "Crossing the Mangrove", also by Maryse Condé, which keeps you guessing and in suspense from beginning to end, and it's also set in Guadeloupe.
Windward Heights is a Caribbean retelling of Wuthering Heights. However, while the novel is rich in Guadeloupean culture and history, the main plot offers no surprises if you're familiar with Emily Brönte's novel.
I think an issue with this novel is that it is too ambitious. Not only is the story of Razyé and Cathy, but also the story of Guadeloupe. It is definitely interesting to learn about all those facts, but I wish the only focus had been the story of Razyé and Cathy. There are too many characters in the book, whose only purpose is to give context to the novel, and, by the middle of the book, this becomes a bit tiresome, regardless of the interesting facts they have to tell. Simone Schwarz-Bart's novel "The Bridge of Beyond" is more effective in telling a story through the history of Guadeloupe.
Finally, dialogues are scarce, which makes the novel almost 350 pages of narration. Don't get me wrong, Maryse Condé uses beautiful language and it never feels like reading a history book, but I am not fond of so much narration.
Again, Windward Heights is a novel worth reading, but I prefer "Crossing the Mangrove", also by Maryse Condé, which keeps you guessing and in suspense from beginning to end, and it's also set in Guadeloupe.
January 4, 2021
I think I may have found my new favourite genre; postcolonial literature. This retelling of Wuthering Heights is set against the backdrop of mainly Guadeloupe and Cuba, and themes of race and class are so explicitly prevalent in the novel that it only added to the suffering that Rayzé (Heathcliff) had been subject to and added fuel to the revenge he wanted to inflict. And what revenge it was - not to mention the accidental consequences that his and Cathy's love would cause in generations to come. This was at times shocking, uncomfortable and heartbreaking but my heart went out to the characters in a way that Emily Brontë's never did. Maryse Condé's writing is stunning, and her descriptions of the setting alone made me fall in love with the novel even more and the multiple perspectives added to the richness of the story. I can't wait to read more of her works.
April 13, 2024
I started reading this novel soon Condé died early this month, despite the fact that I had put aside another of her books (Crossing the Mangrove) and that it is said to be a retelling of Wuthering Heights (which I haven’t read).
This novel worked for me, especially because of the translation and the various first-person narratives (the third-person narrative is also very well done). It’s clear that Richard Philcox used the freedom his wife gave him to write a beautiful piece of work (he translated Mangrove, as well).
The only negatives for me were the novel’s length and the fact that the plot increasingly takes over. The last fifty pages were mostly a chore for me. This is certainly a novel that is better read over as short a period as possible, to keep in the emotional (although not Gothic) mood and to keep all the characters straight.
This novel worked for me, especially because of the translation and the various first-person narratives (the third-person narrative is also very well done). It’s clear that Richard Philcox used the freedom his wife gave him to write a beautiful piece of work (he translated Mangrove, as well).
The only negatives for me were the novel’s length and the fact that the plot increasingly takes over. The last fifty pages were mostly a chore for me. This is certainly a novel that is better read over as short a period as possible, to keep in the emotional (although not Gothic) mood and to keep all the characters straight.
September 14, 2007
A lyrical retelling of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. I reread Wuthering Heights before I began it, which has made it fun to compare. It has the same general storyline but author Maryse Conde inserts her own themes of economic and racial disparities to the original novel's doomed love tragedy.
Like all of Conde's books that I have read so far, this is set in the Caribbean (on the islands of Guadeloupe and Cuba, in this case) and translated from the French. One more note- I am listening to this on tape, rather than reading it, and because it is translated from the French, I am finding it fun to listen to all of the French names, places, and phrases that are left in the original language.
Like all of Conde's books that I have read so far, this is set in the Caribbean (on the islands of Guadeloupe and Cuba, in this case) and translated from the French. One more note- I am listening to this on tape, rather than reading it, and because it is translated from the French, I am finding it fun to listen to all of the French names, places, and phrases that are left in the original language.
December 26, 2021
Ce livre de Maryse Condé, (auteure guadeloupéenne) s’inspire largement du roman d’Emily Brontë Les Hauts des Hurlevents. La migration des cœurs transpose le personnage de Heathcliff en Rayzé, le fils adoptif dont on ne connaît pas les origines mais qui est Noir. Dans sa version, Condé se concentre sur les questions coloniales et de classes. La question de la mixité et de la couleur de la peau des personages sont centrales. Les tensions entre mulâtres, blancs, noirs descendant d’esclaves sont rapportés à travers de multiples voix, servantes, exploiteurs de plantation de cannes à sucre, sorcières et sorciers, mères et enfants. La fin laisse soupçonner un cas d’inceste. Le texte est truffé d’expressions créoles avec un grand soucis pour la description du monde végétal.
April 27, 2024
Aquest llibre és un homenatge a Wuthering Heights, la qual cosa prova que hi ha una tradició literària femenina: hi ha escriptores que han obert camí, les hi ha que en recullen el testimoni. Maryse Condé reescriu aquesta trepidant història gòtica d'amors maleïts i de fantasmes que no descansen mai per emfatitzar-ne els components de raça, classe i gènere que ja estaven en l'original. Ja no estem als "moors" anglesos, sinó a l'illa de Guadalupe, i una polifonia de veus criolles, moltes d'elles de mabos (dides), serventes o veus de gents senzilles, ens expliquen la història del personatges. També hi ha una veu omniscient que ens interpreta els Heathcliffs (Razyés) o les Cathys. La història de l'esclavitud sencera passa per aquestes pàgines, el racisme és el gran protagonista, però per sobre d'això, la veu més ofegada és la de les Cathys, que en aquesta novel·la pateixen la triple condemna del gènere, la raça i la classe, i que, com sempre, són castigades per trencar les convencions.
Un llibre que t'atrapa i no pots deixar.
Un llibre que t'atrapa i no pots deixar.
June 13, 2024
Una versió preciosa de Cims Borrascosos ambientat a les illes antillanes de Guadalupe, Marie-Galante i Dominica. La mateixa història familiar atravessada per les diferències de raça i classe i com aquestes condicionen la relació entre familiars i també amb ells mateixos. És una història trista i amb un punt de desolació: és possible canviar el nostre destí social? Interessant com l'odi de raça i de classe condicionen els destins dels protagonistes.
M'ha semblat especialment bonica la manera de narrar a través dels personatges i destaquen molt aquells protsgonitzats per les criades dels protagonistes. Una manera bella i real de retratar la realitat que és evidentment complexa.
Sincerament, moltes ganes de club de lectura per poder-ho comentar.
M'ha semblat especialment bonica la manera de narrar a través dels personatges i destaquen molt aquells protsgonitzats per les criades dels protagonistes. Una manera bella i real de retratar la realitat que és evidentment complexa.
Sincerament, moltes ganes de club de lectura per poder-ho comentar.
September 21, 2020
An interesting, sexual, dark, in some ways dirty and elegant read that was both engaging, confusing, long, and perhaps a bit painful. I admit, I much prefer Windward Heights to that of its boring british counterpart for which it is almost a parody of, Wuthering Heights. The story is interesting, enticing and commentates on the Carribean, racism, discrimination, slavery, religion and stereotypes, and it does so almost effortlessly. I would recommend it to anyone interested in African American Literature, or more specifically Creole literature.
July 20, 2023
It started off great but then went downhill after the first 150 pages. I really thought it was going to be a great read, but oh, how disappointing.
September 24, 2024
Maryse Condé té una prosa preciosa i una forma d'explicar i ambientar les seves històries en el seu context brutal. No obstant, aquesta novel·la m'ha semblat una mica massa recarregada en aquest sentit.
Pel que fa a la història, tan cruel, despietada i salvatge, no pot deixar indiferent a ningú. Una història d'amor, desamor i venjança que trascendeix les generacions de dos homes lligats pel desig d'una única dona.
Pel que fa a la història, tan cruel, despietada i salvatge, no pot deixar indiferent a ningú. Una història d'amor, desamor i venjança que trascendeix les generacions de dos homes lligats pel desig d'una única dona.
June 11, 2024
Magnífic. L'ambientació de 10, la caracterització dels personatges, molt impactant. 100 % recomanable!
October 30, 2011
The description of food alone is worth the read. Conde does a fabulous job describing the setting as she shifts Bronte's cold-climate classic to a hotter one, not sacrificing any of the character development along the way.
November 30, 2020
This is a five star for me - Maryse Conde grabs 'Wuthering Heights' by its teeth, wrestles with it and reworks it admirably into a Caribbean context. If you have read 'Wuthering Heights' (Emily Bronte) and 'Wide Sargasso Sea' ( Jean Rhys), then this novel should be next on your list.... There are multiple narrators, but I was never less than enthralled. I loved the naming of the characters and the writer expands the number of characters to include a wider range of voices and perspectives. The plot deviates somewhat from Emily Bronte's in terms of the Cathy Linton/ Linton/Hareton situation, but justifiably so, in that the essence of the original is recognisable. Obsession, revenge, racism, sexism, class, gender, politics, colonialism - it's all here and more - set in a Caribbean landscape that is alternately benign and ruthlessly harsh. Maryse Conde won the alternative Nobel literature prize, The New Academy Prize, in 2018.
June 3, 2020
I struggled getting through this. It's a retelling of Wuthering Heights set in Guadeloupe with the added themes of colonialism and race. The main storyline is familiar - but Conde really takes the story further with LOTs of 1st person narrated chapters from various characters. Too many characters. Maybe twenty perspectives total? It's a lot to keep track of, especially when one character will show up to tell their POV, and then never show up again as a character. I think Conde is trying to pull her themes through many people, but all it ended up doing is just making this real hard to wade though. There were also many unfamiliar words (this was originally written in French) which just made reading quite slow.
Also wow, not a commentary on Conde but of Bronte - I forgot how fucked up the characters in Wuthering Heights are.
Also wow, not a commentary on Conde but of Bronte - I forgot how fucked up the characters in Wuthering Heights are.
August 21, 2020
I only discovered Ms Conde this year via her amazing book Segu and this is another masterpiece to add to the list. It's based on Wuthering Heights but it takes it one step further, to explore racism and the impact of colonisation on relationships. It's a stunning exploration of Guadelope, Ms Conde's country of origin, in the late 19th/early 20th century. it's rich in imagery, imagination and story telling.
February 28, 2019
A GREAT READ!
I chose this version of WUTHERING HEIGHTS because of the "code" way Heathcliff's heritage it written. He is described as a Gypsy, dark, dirty. All racist descriptions to describe people of African descent. A very eye opening exp that covers, in brief, the slave trade route i the West Indies. MARVELOUS! I love Maryse Conde's writing.
I chose this version of WUTHERING HEIGHTS because of the "code" way Heathcliff's heritage it written. He is described as a Gypsy, dark, dirty. All racist descriptions to describe people of African descent. A very eye opening exp that covers, in brief, the slave trade route i the West Indies. MARVELOUS! I love Maryse Conde's writing.
August 25, 2022
Très belle réécriture des Hauts de Hurlevent, dans laquelle la question raciale est au centre de l'histoire, la rendant bien plus crue et violente. Nous retrouvons bien l'ambiance gothique avec les tempêtes, l'effrayante maison appelée l'Engoulvent, les morts omniprésents dans la vie des vivants.
Malgré tout, il y a quelques passages un peu long qui ralentissent la lecture...
Malgré tout, il y a quelques passages un peu long qui ralentissent la lecture...
June 17, 2024
Em va agradar molt el començament, però de sobte la protagonista mor. Després, a la segona part mor l'altre protagonista i, no t'ho perdis, tots els fills es diuen com ells. Jo m'he fet un embolic i m'he desembolicat un munt de vegades al llarg del llibre. En general, m'ha agradat, i ara tinc moltes ganes de llegir-me Wuthering heights, a veure que tal.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 13, 2018
Didn’t get enough of the passion between Rayze and Cathy that was in the original Wuthering Heights. Unfortunately, that’s what I loved the most and sorely missed in this retelling set in Guadeloupe. Much of it was very abrupt - especially the ending.
August 16, 2020
so excellent ! the decision to imagine multiple voices, all short of nothing when it comes to the power to haunt, against the isolation of wuthering heights is perhaps the most generative, wonderful inclusion
August 1, 2024
“What is love? A bonfire of fluttering leaves that you light in the evening and in the morning is nothing more than a heap of ashes. That's it; that's it exactly. A catch, a zatrap. That's it; that's it exactly. You go to bed with a burning heart. You get up with both feet as cold as an old bag of bones. Only the departed remain handsome and desired forever.”
Wow. What a gut-punch of a story. I loved how half the story was told from all the different perspectives of the lower class characters in & around the main characters. Their vision of their world & the character & choices of the de Linsseuils & the l’Engoulvent clan was such a fascinating way to view the drama enfolding within the lives of these two families.
Click here to read my full review of WINDWARD HEIGHTS complete with my full thoughts, further reading suggestions, & more of my favorite quotes!
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
CW // lots—racism (n-word), rape, child abuse, graphic illness & death (tuberculosis)
June 2, 2020
Very well written with some reminders of the harsh history of the Caribbean islands. A novel full of love, hatred, violence and poverty. Some parts can be hard to stomach.
July 18, 2020
Maryse Conde gives Wuthering Heights depth and meaning that I never knew it was lacking. When I read the original by Emily Bronte I was so engrossed. I loved that having a single narrative kept me constantly engaged. However, it is because Conde writes her retelling in the exact opposite way as this - with many different narratives from all classes of character - that I enjoyed this version even more.
Windward Heights becomes three dimensional as the reader discovers each character's perspective from one chapter to the next. Experiencing the inner workings of the individuals brought greater understanding of the overall story for myself as the reader.
Conde focused less on the obsessive lovestory between Healthcliffe (now Razye) and Cathy and more on the dimensions of race and class in Guadeloupe just after the abolishment of slavery. This was a change I was glad to experience.
On a personal note my mother in law resides in and was born on Guadeloupe and I very much enjoyed learning more about the island's history. My personal experience there lent me the unique ability to imagine the homes and places she described so vividly. This made the experience of reading Windward Heights very special for me. I can't wait to read more from Maryse Conde in the future.
Windward Heights becomes three dimensional as the reader discovers each character's perspective from one chapter to the next. Experiencing the inner workings of the individuals brought greater understanding of the overall story for myself as the reader.
Conde focused less on the obsessive lovestory between Healthcliffe (now Razye) and Cathy and more on the dimensions of race and class in Guadeloupe just after the abolishment of slavery. This was a change I was glad to experience.
On a personal note my mother in law resides in and was born on Guadeloupe and I very much enjoyed learning more about the island's history. My personal experience there lent me the unique ability to imagine the homes and places she described so vividly. This made the experience of reading Windward Heights very special for me. I can't wait to read more from Maryse Conde in the future.
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