Conceived aboard a slave ship bound for the Caribbean, Solitude was born into slavery and sold on the auction block, a black chattel of a corrupt society until she heard the ringing of rebellion on the island wind. Schwarz-Bart, author of The Last of the Just, and whose own terrible experiences in Nazi-occupied Europe here find a clear if distant echo, offers a sensitive and impassioned portrait of a woman and her race, fallen victim to the inhumanity of humankind.