I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem

Among the 'Witches of Salem' - the young women of Salem, Massachusetts accused of witchcraft in 1692 - was a West Indian slave. Tituba, released two years later, was sold for the cost of her chains and shackles and scarcely heard of since. Maryse Conde rescues her from historical silence by creating for her a fictional childhood as an orphan in Barbados where she was initiated into another, benign, kind of witchcraft, brought from Africa by an old woman, Mama Yaya, before being sold to the family who bring her to Salem. A remarkable feat of imaginative projection, this novel transcends the boundaries of culture and history - in examining the bigotries and hypocrisies of Puritan New England it challenges us to face those of our own time.