"Adelise is a girl trapped working in the cane fields of Martinique. Yearning for communication, she confides in the mysterious flowering tree in her backyard; her mother calls her a dragonfly, for she refuses to settle down and learn that life is not a game.".

"When Adelise is forced to move from her village to Fort-de-France, the island's politically restive capital, her aunt introduces her to the unsavory business of nightlife among the mulatto elite, and she comes to rely even more on an elaborate system of detachment from her body."--BOOK JACKET.