Notes to a Black Woman

The extraordinary testimony of a daring Caribbean writer-activist, determined to expose injustice and defend the dignity of migrant workers In the 1960s, hundreds of women traveled from French colonies in the West Indies to become domestic workers for white families in France. Recruited by the French government with the promise of economic opportunity, these women instead found themselves subjected to racial discrimination, deplorable living conditions, overwork, and no pay until they “earned back” the cost of the trip to France. After hearing the shocking stories of Caribbean domestic workers, Françoise Ega took a position as a cleaning woman in a wealthy French home in order to chronicle these abuses. Structured as a collection of unsent letters to the Brazilian writer Carolina Maria de Jesus, Notes to a Black Woman weaves Ega’s experiences with memories of her childhood in Martinique, the joys and tribulations of family life, and her reflections on the power of the written word to reveal the discomfiting truths behind the facade of bourgeois French society. Composed on her bus commutes and by candlelight at her kitchen table while her five children slept, these pages comprise one of the most moving literary witnesses to female exploitation and racism in the twentieth century. From a singular and unforgettable voice, Notes to a Black Woman is a piercing denunciation of the legacies of colonialism and slavery, a wholesale rejection of alienation, and an intimate archive of friendship, joy, solidarity, motherhood, and hope.