About the Author

Maryse Condé was an award-winning novelist, critic, and playwright. Her novels include Crossing the Mangrove, Segu, Who Slashed Celanire's Throat?, and I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem. Her work has been translated into many languages all over the world, and she was awarded the New Academy Prize in Literature (the alternative to the Nobel Prize) in 2018. She passed away in 2024 at the age of ninety. 

Reviews

""Entering the Castle" is...based on St. Teresa's seven interior mansions, which are explained and elaborated here...so beautifully, clearly, compassionately, lightheartedly, wondrously...�as� seven steps...to your own deepest self or soul. Teresa became not only a spiritual woman who had written a brilliant practice manual, but a saint who saved Caroline's life, showed her her soul, awakened her heart, and set her on the never-ending...timelessly fulfilled road of practice. I just know that Teresa would say 'amen' to this luminous book as the fruit of her calling to you, a calling to all of us to be mystics without monasteries in a world sorely in need of a touch of the divine...the true self in each and every one of us." -- From the foreword by Ken Wilber, author of "A Brief History of Everything" and "Integral Spirituality"

"Caroline Myss's brilliant, brave, and profoundly moving book takes us deep into the burning heart of Teresa of Avila's vision of divine consciousness. Seekers on all parts will find here mature wisdom and deep sacred passion expressed with thrilling directness and a fierce psychological precision worthy of Teresa herself." -- Andrew Harvey, author of "The Direct Path" and "Son of Man"

""Entering the Castle" is...based on St. Teresa's seven interior mansions, which are explained and elaborated here...so beautifully, clearly, compassionately, lightheartedly, wondrously...Yas seven steps...to your own deepest self or soul. Teresa became not only a spiritual woman who had written a brilliant practice manual, but a saint who saved Caroline's life, showed her her soul, awakened her heart, and set her on the never-ending...timelessly fulfilled road of practice. I just know that Teresa would say 'amen' to this luminous book as the fruit of her calling to you, a calling to all of us to be mystics without monasteries in a world sorely in need of a touch of the divine...the true self in each and every one of us."

-- From the foreword by Ken Wilber, author of "A Brief History of Everything" and "Integral Spirituality"
"Caroline Myss's brilliant, brave, and profoundly moving book takes us deep into the burning heart of Teresa of Avila's vision of divine consciousness. Seekers on all parts will find here mature wisdom and deep sacred passion expressed with thrilling directness and a fierce psychological precision worthy of Teresa herself."

-- Andrew Harvey, author of "The Direct Path" and "Son of Man"

After the mysterious death of her longtime lover, Rosolie Thibaudin, a native of Guadeloupe now living in Cape Town, is in search of her own identity. In a stream-of-consciousness narrative that fluctuates between third and first person, Rosolie reflects on her difficult family history and her relationship with Stephen as well as with past lovers. Though a talented painter, Rosolie has allowed her identity to be subsumed by Stephen's dominant personality, and as a black woman involved with a white man and living outside her native country, she often feels either reviled or invisible. This is a difficult book, revealing the violent daily struggle of living in modern South Africa. Condo's (Crossing the Mangrove) most compelling irony is demonstrating that in an increasingly global society, humans still fail to trust or understand those who are different from themselves. Recommended for literary collections and those specializing in international literature.-Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

Caribbean author Cond? (Crossing the Mangrove) makes one woman's search for identity a vehicle to explore a vast range of racial, cultural and gender issues in a seething novel that exposes the violent ferment of postapartheid South Africa. Ros?lie Thibaudin's travels and travails have led her from Guadeloupe, the island of her birth, to Paris, London, Tokyo and, finally, Cape Town. With the mysterious murder of her white husband, Stephen Stewart, the son of an English father and a French mother, Ros?lie, whose self-doubt is almost paralyzing, is suddenly without the support that has kept her going for 20 years. Her resolve to stay in Cape Town in order not to abandon her slain husband forces her to adapt and to re-examine her past. As the secrets of Stephen's life unravel, Ros?lie's self-examination becomes more painful and rewarding. This literary novel with its multicultural themes may disappoint those expecting a conventional murder thriller. (Feb.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.