She and her family, including an illiterate, abusive, alcoholic but resourceful father, rescued and sheltered scores of them. In a childlike style that reflects the excitement of those dramatic, danger-filled days, she relives the emotions of the irrepressible and plucky young heroine as she and her mother nursed the wounded and comforted the dying, both American and German, while her father salvaged precious stores from the water. Duboscq, severely injured and disfigured in a land-mine explosion that killed her brother, credits surviving five years of surgical procedures, and the tribulations of later life, in part to the inspiration she derived from the suffering and bravery of the soldiers she met during this childhood experience, an act of courage for which she was awarded France's Legion of Honor.

    Yet critics have argued about the precise nature of this novel, or biography, or "criticism-fiction" which is the summation of Sartre's philosophical, social, and literary thought. Sartre writes, simply, in the preface to the book: "The Family Idiot is the sequel to The Question of Method. The subject: what, at this point in time, can we know about a man? It seemed to me that this question could only be answered by studying a specific case." "A man is never an individual," Sartre writes, "it would be more fitting to call him a universal singular. Summed up and for this reason universalized by his epoch, he in turn resumes it by reproducing himself in it as singularity. Universal by the singular universality of human history, singular by the universalizing singularity of his projects, he requires simultaneous examination from both ends." This is the method by which Sartre examines Flaubert and the society in which he existed. Now this masterpiece is being made available in an inspired English translation that captures all the variations of Sartre's style—from the jaunty to the ponderous—and all the nuances of even the most difficult ideas. Volume 1 consists of Part One of the original French work, La Constitution, and is primarily concerned with Flaubert's childhood and adolescence.

    From the beginnings of Mycea’s family in the tale of two blood brothers, both named Odono, to its ending with the fate of her two sons, the novel encapsulates the island’s destiny in one Martinican woman’s plight. With the past irretrievable and the future in doubt, Mycea journeys inward, finding in her connection to the land of Martinique, and to the seafloor littered with drowned slaves, a reality, and a possibility, uncolonized by others’ history.