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Jump to navigationJump to searchBlack Sugar by Miguel Bonnefoy and Emily Boyce (translator) (view source)
Revision as of 09:36, 20 August 2020
, 09:36, 20 August 2020no edit summary
However, elements of the novel are reminiscent of Marquez, almost copycat-esque. Bonnefoy, like Marquez, utilises the themes of unrequited love, fate, the unrelenting momentum of modernity and familial bonds. Now to compare any author to Marquez is naturally unfair. He is a Nobel Prize winner and his literary influence is felt everywhere. Bonnefoy brings his own voice to these Marquez elements and creates an entertaining and melancholic tale.
Bonnefoy has an appealing turn of phrase as well. He utilises language brilliantly with lines such as, ''the advantage of being poor… is you can only get richer'' and ''in a hangman's home… there's no talk of ropes.'' He is having such fun mastering his own style. Even though occasionally it comes across as self-indulgent, however , that doesn't matter because it's just too good a read.
The narrative is told through a sagacious narrator with hardly any dialogue. This allows the tale to be told as if by a wandering minstrel. Someone who had happened to pass into town and told an old folk legend to an enraptured audience to earn his keep. Similar to the treasure of Captain Morgan within the story, the narrative style becomes steeped in legend and folklore.
''Black Sugar'' is a beautiful generational saga akin to ''One Hundred Years of Solitude'' or ''The House of the Spirits''. Although at times it strays too close to the beats of these magnificent works, Bonnefoy never loses his own voice and continues to write with strokes of brilliant colours and sounds.
For further reading we can recommend [[Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys]] or [[Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat]].
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