Winner of the 2018 New Academy Prize in LiteratureIn this collection of autobiographical essays, Maryse Condé vividly evokes the relationships and events that gave her childhood meaning: discovering her parents' feelings of alienation, her first crush, a falling out with her best friend, the death of her beloved grandmother, her first encounter with racism. These gemlike vignettes capture the spirit of Condé's fiction: haunting, powerful, poignant, and leavened with a streak of humor.