160
1
200 * 267
05/01/2024
12+
In 1841, 12-year-old Edmond, a young slave of Mr. Ferreol Sellier-Beaumont, a landowner on Reunion Island, discovered the process of artificial fertilization of vanilla. The technical procedure he invented, simple, fast, and efficient, was a worldwide revolution in the cultivation of vanilla, and was adopted almost everywhere in the world. Even though it made the island extremely wealthy, Edmond did not make any profit from it. Though he suffers a fall from grace and spends time in prison, in the end he triumphs against all odds, becoming a popular figure, a man of roguish charm, joyful, and eternal.
But history was in turmoil in 1848, with rumours of a revolution in France and the liberation of all black people on the neighbouring island of Mauritius. And what if the abolition of slavery was about to happen on Reunion Island?
This well-documented novel is both a chronicle of the period (told from the point of view of the slaves and freedmen) and a love story, set at a time when history was turning upside down.
