Achille

The primary protagonist among the villagers of Gros Ilet in St. Lucia, Achille (pronounced A-sheel) is a fisherman deeply in love with the local beauty, Helen. Because he and his friend Hector both love Helen, they become arch-rivals, as did their Homeric namesakes three thousand years earlier. Afflicted with the rootlessness that often results from living under colonialism, Achille not only needs to win Helen, he also must discover his personal and racial roots in order to confirm his rightful place in St. Lucia. The event that gives his life ultimate meaning is a sunstroke-induced trance that transports him through time and space to his ancestral river village in Africa. There he meets his distant grandsire Afolabe, who teaches him his name and the forgotten ceremonies that restore the racial memory taken from his predecessors by the Middle Passage. When he reawakens the following day, he must still...