Gaëlle Bélem | „Die seltenste Frucht“ – Lesung

In her novel biography, Gaëlle Bélem tells the story of the Creole slave Edmond Albius, who lived on the French-colonized Île Bourbon in the 19th century and achieved amazing things: At the age of 12, he invented a process for pollinating vanilla, which was subsequently cultivated all over the world and celebrated as the most popular of all flavors.

The author, who has won awards for her dazzling and humorous language and the authenticity of her characters, focuses on the history of her homeland, La Réunion. It was characterized by racism and the oppression of black people, whose talents and successes were systematically denied. Edmond is their representative: Many became rich from the rarest fruit, he died in poverty.