The Bastards
SynopsisPlot
The protagonist is collective, a group of medical students from French Guiana at the University of Montpellier, France, who learn what separates them as Caribbean people from their French and African counterparts. Juminer characterizes the three principal types of men drawn together in the stuggle for emancipation: "those who sooner or later will opt for violence; those who, by their sterling example, prefer to work patiently in the socioprofessional arena, in order to instill a certain moral and civic sense in their countrymen; and finally, those who wear their bourgeois legacy like a curse and will be ready to try anything, including terrorism, to prove that they are not enemies of the people."
Story
About this book
The Bastards follows a group of medical students from French Guiana studying at the University of Montpellier in France. Rather than centering on a single character, the novel treats the group collectively, tracking how each member responds to the social and political pressures of being Caribbean students in a European institution. Their time in Montpellier forces them to confront the distance between themselves, their French classmates, and fellow students from Africa.
Bertne Juminer uses the university setting to outline three broad paths his characters take in the struggle for emancipation. Some gravitate toward direct confrontation and eventually violence. Others choose patient professional work, hoping to build moral and civic standards among their compatriots through personal example. A third group, burdened by middle-class origins they view as a liability, pursue extreme measures to prove their loyalty to the broader cause. The novel traces how these positions form, clash, and pull the group apart.
The book is as much about education in its wider sense as it is about medicine. Social awareness, political alignment, and racial identity all develop alongside the students' formal studies, shaped by the particular position French Guiana holds as an overseas territory of France rather than an independent nation.
