Rarest Fruit
Regular price
€18.50
Black history
botany
Bourbon
Category=FC
Category=FV
colonialism
Creole
discovery
Edmond Albius
emancipation
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eq_fiction
eq_historical-fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
Ferreol Beaumont
fictionalized biography
France
Gaelle Belem
hand-pollination
historical fiction
history of vanilla
Karen Fleetwood
Laetitia Saint-Loubert
orchids
pioneer
Reunion
Reunion Island
Sainte-Suzanne
slavery
vanilla
vanilla flower
vanilla pod
Product details
- ISBN 9781739842383
- Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 01 May 2025
- Publisher: Bullaun Press
- Publication City/Country: IE
- Product Form: Paperback
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1829. Sainte-Suzanne, Bourbon Island. A Black orphan, a slave of only seven weeks, is placed – as if by fate – into the arms of Ferréol Beaumont, a botanist with a passion for orchids. He raises this child, Edmond, teaching him all he knows of the lush plants that populate his tropical garden.
At twelve years old, the illiterate young prodigy unlocks the secret to hand-pollinating the vanilla orchid, revolutionizing not only the island’s economy but French patisserie, perfumes & more. While his discovery brings prosperity to others, the exhilarating aroma of the vanilla flower soon dissipates for Edmond as a bitter reality stretches out before him – his brilliance unrecognized, his name forgotten.
A caustic look at the nineteenth-century history of Reunion Island under French colonial rule. For lovers of history, botany and vanilla ice cream.
Award-winning author Gaëlle Bélem from Reunion has published two novels with Gallimard – Un monstre est là, derrière la porte (2020) & Le fruit le plus rare (2023). Her third book, Sud sauvage is forthcoming April 2025. She works as a juvenile court judge as well as teaching Latin, Geography & History.
