CHRONICLE OF THE SEVEN SORROWS

Chronicle Of The Seven Sorrows ($25.00; Nov. 19; 226 pp.; 0-8032-1495-2) The first novel (published in 1986 in France) by the Martiniquean author of Texaco and Solibo Magnificent, among other colorful fiction and autobiography, is a raffish mock epic celebration of his island homeland’s energetically mixed (French and Creole) language and culture. The lively antihero Pipi Soleil is an amoral “djobber” (deliveryman, at sea and ashore) who transports (and sometimes imperturbably murders) human cargo, contends in a (brilliantly described) wheelbarrow race, ineptly pursues the beauty of his dreams, and reluctantly guards a threatening zombie’s buried treasure. This is wonderful stuff. Don’t be surprised if the accomplished Chamoiseau emerges as one of the new century’s leading Nobel prize candidates.