Eve Out of Her Ruins
SynopsisPlot
With brutal honesty and poetic urgency, Ananda Devi relates the tale of four young Mauritians trapped in their country's endless cycle of fear and violence: Eve, whose body is her only weapon and source of power; Savita, Eve's best friend, the only one who loves Eve without self-interest, who has plans to leave but will not go alone; Saadiq, gifted would-be poet, inspired by Rimbaud, in love with Eve; Clélio, belligerent rebel, waiting without hope for his brother to send for him from France.
Story
About this book
Eve Out of Her Ruins follows four young people in Mauritius, in the neighbourhoods that visitors to the beaches and resorts rarely see. Eve treats her body as her only source of power. Savita, her closest friend, loves her without self-interest and plans to leave, though not alone. Saadiq writes poems and reads Rimbaud, and loves Eve. Clelio waits for a brother in France to call for him.
Ananda Devi tells the story through alternating voices, so the same streets appear from four angles. Fear and violence recur, and each character measures what leaving or staying would cost. Devi, who was born in Mauritius, is concerned with how a person builds a self at the edges of a society that offers little to build with, and with how loyalty and desire hold the four together.
Devi writes in French, and the book reached English-language readers in translation, with this edition marking its first British publication. In 2006 it received the Prix des cinq continents de la Francophonie, a prize for novels written in French anywhere in the world. Mauritius itself lies in the Indian Ocean, with communities of Indian, African, Chinese and European descent.
