The Governor's Daughter

""La Fille du Gobernator" doubtless belongs to the literature of excess, but when such mastery is applied to excess, one can only be amazed." - "Le Monde". "The Governor's Daughter" is an extraordinary tale of innocence adrift in a monstrous world.

Set just after World War I in the French penal colony in Cayenne, French Guiana, it is the story of Chretienne, the seven-year-old daughter of the colony's governor and his obsessively devout wife, whom the convicts acidly call the "Mother of God." Chretienne's disarmingly clear view of the adults with whom she lives - her pious parents and the notorious convicts in their charge - is both hilarious and harrowing.

Her parents, driven by their desire for sainthood, subject Chretienne and the prisoners alike to inhuman rigors and coldness.

Denied it by her family, the child finds human contact among the convicts, especially the Chinese murderer, Tang.

Pervading all is the grotesque yet fascinating atmosphere of the penal colony and its colonial setting - an atmosphere that we discover through the alert, inquisitive consciousness of a young girl. Constant's portrayal of Chretienne and her frightening life in the penal colony is unforgettable - the work of a major literary, and satiric, talent. "The Governor's Daughter" is one of the most acclaimed French novels of recent years.

A finalist for the Prix Goncourt in 1994, it is Paule Constant's sixth novel.

She has received many literary awards, including the 1990 Grand Prix du Roman de l'Academie Francaise for her novel, "White Spirit".

Betsy Wing is a translator and author. Her translations include Helene Cixous's "The Book of Promethea" (Nebraska 1991) and Didier Eribon's "Michel Foucault".