Born in Guadeloupe, Ivan and Ivana are twins with a bond so strong they become afraid of their feelings for one another.
When their mother sends them off to live with their father in Mali they begin to grow apart, until, as young adults in Paris, Ivana's youthful altruism compels her to join the police academy, while Ivan, stunted by early experiences of rejection and exploitation, walks the path of radicalization. The twins, unable to live either with or without each other, become perpetrator and victim in a wave of violent attacks.
In The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana, Maryse Condé, winner of the 2018 Alternative Nobel prize in literature, touches upon major contemporary issues such as racism, terrorism, political corruption, economic inequality, globalization, and migration. With her most modern novel to date, this master storyteller offers an impressive picture of a colorful yet turbulent 21st century.
'Scandal is at the center of two of Condé's newly translated novels, both of which show her at her signature best: offering complex, polyphonic and ultimately shattering stories whose provocations linger long after their final pages.The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana, one of many works wryly rendered in English by Condé's translator husband, was written in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris and takes on the feedback loop of global inequity and radicalisation. The conceit is deceptively straightforward: Ivan and Ivana are twins born to a single Guadeloupean mother, and as they grow up they adore each other above all else in the world. In fact, their bond is so strong that it tips over into incestuous passions they must be vigilant not to consummate. Yet despite their closeness, they grow to be as different as night and day, or in their case, terrorist and police hero...This book is a reflection on the dangers of binary thinking, and the Wilde line 'Each man kills the thing he loves' serves as a kind of refrain for the mutually destructive passions between West and East, black and white, purist and pervert.' - The New York Times Book Review
'What an astounding novel. Never have I read anything so wild and loving, so tender and ruthless. Condé is one of our greatest writers, a literary sorcerer but here she has outdone even herself, summoned a storm from out of the world's troubled heart. Ivan and Ivana, in their love, in their Attic fates, mirror our species' terrible brokenness and it's improbable grace.' - Junot Díaz
'The breadth, depth, and power of Maryse Condé's majestic work is exceptionally remarkable. The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana is a superb addition to this incomparable oeuvre, and is one of Condé's most timely, virtuoso, and breathtaking novels.' - Edwidge Danticat
