Title: The Sugar Commander - Raphaël Confiant - book
Summary :
The sugarcane harvest can begin at the Bel-Évent plantation in Martinique in January 1936. Commander Firmin Léandor, a mulatto foreman, mercilessly oversees the work of the cutters and moorers, a backbreaking labor, a daily hell. "Since the beginning of the world, God has written our misfortune on the reverse side of the white man's happiness..." Béké, mulatto, Congo Negro, Couli... For generations, everyone has obeyed the strict hierarchy of their color and rank, bowed under the weight of a double fatality: blackness and sugarcane. Firmin's mother was definitely right: "Cane is cursed!"