Murderous cities

Murderous Cities is a translation of Alfred Alexandre’s Les villes assassines (Écriture 2011). Set in the Saint-Thérèse neighborhood in Fort-de-France, the novel follows the lives of Évane and Winona, the narrator and his young lover. Évane relates the conditions the inhabitants face in the neighborhood, conditions forced on them from the outside, by the city and with it the rest of the country, which conspire to keep them trapped in a cycle of sex, drugs, alcohol, poverty, and violence. Évane dreams of escaping the neighborhood, rescuing both himself and Winona from the neighborhood and from Slack, Évane’s childhood friend and the local pimp and gang leader.

The streets defining and enclosing the neighborhood— Avenue Maurice-Bishop, Rue Fièvre (Fever Street), Rue Veille-aux-Morts (Street of Wakes, as the vigil over the body of someone who has died), Rue Sans-Retour (Dead End Street, lit. Street Without Return)—appear throughout the novel, repeatedly enclosing the space and characters, becoming almost incantatory.

Alexandre’s style in Les villes assassines combines Martinican Creole, English, and neologisms, and his French lexicon ranges from lyrical poetry to slang. The result is a prose that is both musical and brutal in places, which brings the setting and characters to life, and pulls both reader and characters to the seemingly inevitable end.