Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Reviews of I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem (Caraf Books)

I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem (Caraf Books)
I Tituba Black Witch of Salem - Caraf Books
Author: Maryse Conde
ISBN-13: 9780813913988
ISBN-10: 0813913985
Publication Date: 9/1992
Pages: 227
Rating:
  • Currently 4.5/5 Stars.
 1

4.5 stars, based on 1 rating
Publisher: Univ of Virginia Pr
Book Type: Hardcover
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

PIZZELLEBFS avatar reviewed I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem (Caraf Books) on + 331 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
The author of the highly recommended intergenerational saga Tree of Life (Fiction Forecasts, June 29) moves from her native Guadeloupe to colonial New England in this potent novel. Revising the legend of a slave woman accused of practicing witchcraft and imprisoned in Salem, Mass., in 1692, Conde freely imagines Tituba's childhood and old age, endows her with what Davis calls a contemporary social consciousness, and allows her to narrate the tale. Her pointedly political story indicts the Puritans' racism and hypocrisy and their contemporary manifestations. Conceived when an English sailor rapes an Ashanti captive on the slave ship Christ the King , Tituba grows up in Barbados but follows her beloved, John Indian, into servitude in America when he is sold to minister Samuel Parris. Charged with witchcraft when she heals Parris's wife and daughters, she shares a jail cell with Hester Prynne, who helps her plan her testimony before the Salem judges. Eventually reprieved, Tituba is bought by a Jew, himself persecuted, who frees her and gives her passage to Barbados. At once playful and searing, Conde's work critiques ostensibly white, male versions of history and literature by appropriating them.