The Red of His Shadow: A Novel

From one of today's most gifted young Latin American writers, The Red of His Shadow is a breathtaking novel, a contemporary love story with the power of Greek tragedy that takes the reader deep into the mysterious world of Haitian Voudon. It is Holy Week, and the Haitian sugar cane harvesters can temporarily forget their misery and lose themsevles in the fervor of Voudon. But amidst the colorful festival, a struggle for power, as well as a devastating passion, develops between Mistress Zulé, a Voudon priestess and spiritual leader, and the infamous, bloodthirsty Similá Bolosse, a rival Voudon priest backed by the tontons macoutes. Based on true events, The Red of His Shadow evokes ferocious love, intense hatred, and the specter of death looming within life. Written in a prose remarkable for its clarity and musicality, the novel manages to be both richly symbolic and intensely physical. Behind a case that Dominican police closed as a simple "crime of passion" pulses the spell of a war that remains unfinished today.