MELITTE

A novel set in Louisiana that spans the years 176572, when the colony was changing from French to Spanish rule. Narrated by Melitte, a young mulatto slave girl belonging to a feckless farmer and his sadistic wife, the story follows her from the age of six, when she is already working beyond her strength in field and cabin, to the age of thirteen, when, after an unsuccessful attempt to buy her freedom, she runs away. Shaik has vividly imagined the psychic pain of bondage as she traces both Melitte's gradually dawning awareness that her misery and lovelessness are caused by an evil named ``slavery'' and the concomitant growth of her fierce desire for freedom. In the end, Melitte must leave behind the one person she loves—Marie, the young daughter of her owners, who was entrusted to Melitte's care as an infant and who helps her escape. That Marie, the pampered young ``mistress,'' could be as daring and selfless as Shaik shows her at the tender age of six, strains credibility, but the growth of the bond between the girls is convincingly rendered. Full of period detail and vivid sensory writing, this book provides an aching answer to the question, ``What was it like to be a slave?'' (Fiction. 10-14)