In a sexual frenzy, Mina Montério tries to lose both herself and the phantoms that have haunted her since she left Guadeloupe, but she cannot elude the ghost of her beloved sister Rosalia, who burned to death in a fire Mina escaped. Ultimately, in the company of a tormented man recently released from a mental hospital, Mina returns to Piment, her birthplace, to unravel the mystery of her family’s curse.

Sorting through stories of quarrels and betrayals, incest and rivalry, black magic and sorcery, the two find what they seek: the key to what tortures them. Through their quest, Gisèle Pineau explores the questions of migration, exile, and return that have distinguished her work among Francophone writers within the Creole tradition. An intensely felt and strikingly original tale, Devil’s Dance shows Pineau’s genius for mapping the lost soul in search of itself.

Gisèle Pineau is a psychiatric nurse and novelist living in Paris. She is considered by many to be one of the canonical writers in the creolité movement in Francophone literature. Her novel L’espérance-macadam, later translated as Macadam Dreams (Nebraska 2003), is frequently cited as a masterpiece of French-Caribbean literature.

C. Dickson is a professional translator living in France whose many translations include Pineau’s Macadam Dreams and Mohammed Dib’s Savage Night, both available in Bison Books editions.