This is a searing portrayal of Mayotte, the small island off the coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean, a far-flung remnant of the French colonies, sharing the status of “Department” in name alone with those in mainland France. This is a land of brutal contrasts: a little corner of paradise for tourists with its white sandy beaches and lush scents of flowering hibiscus and frangipani on one hand, on the other the hell of the shanty towns like Kaweni, nicknamed Gaza with tragic prescience. Here gangs of youths roam and steal, high on drugs, while the population is swollen  by the “clandestins”, immigrants “sans papiers” who  mistakenly see Mayotte as an easy backdoor route into France.

Moïse  symbolises the plight of an individual in limbo between two cultures.  He is the son of a young illegal immigrant who rejects him at birth for having two eyes of different colour, one black, one green. This dooms him to be branded a djinn, bringer of misfortune, symbol of the negative forces which bedevil the local community.  Yet his adoptive mother is an educated white woman whose untimely death leaves him ill-equipped to deal with harsh reality.  While he wishes to be accepted into a gang of disaffected black youths,  they only see him as a spoilt little rich boy, to be fleeced of his cash for them to spend on drugs and mocked for his natural politeness and, for them, ludicrous consideration for his pet dog.

The vivid descriptions of Mayotte and well-observed characters studies to some extent offset some scenes of extreme violence, which at times seems gratuitous. The author succeeds in arousing our sympathy even for the gang leader Bruce who has been brutalised by his own experience of rejection, and seems driven by jealousy of the privilege which Moïse enjoyed and took for granted in the past.

Highly praised, this book is worth reading,  particularly by those with little knowledge or understanding of the issues involved, although  it makes its key points early on, so that the agonising account of  Moïse’s predicament becomes somewhat repetitive,  even tedious.  My main criticism is that the different viewpoint adopted in each chapter includes characters who are clearly dead, but hover in spirit form, commenting on the scene in question. This may reflect the superstitions of the native culture, but felt like a surrealistic device too far.

I was intrigued by the possible ambiguity of the ending, left unsure whether it was a sad, but predictable because inevitable outcome, or if I was meant to read into it an ironic clever twist.

This has also been made into a film.