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It is a story told in every Creole family I know in Mauritius It is often narrated during a long drive: a window rolls down and a hand gestures to stanzas upon stanzas of sugarcane, or bungalows on the coast, or valleys now privately owned ‘This used to be ours,’ says a parent ‘They took it We lost it’   There are several common stories of the taking The Creole child of a white man is forbidden from inheriting his property An illiterate widow signs acres of land to corrupt notaries, who promise that her progeny will be taken care of Families are chased out of their homes   These are old stories, learned by rote and handed down like a relic, a warning: Look at all we had Look: you could lose everything too   With time and pain these stories often become nebulous – sometimes on purpose   My mother’s way of coping with her family history is near-absolute silence; she fears, perhaps, that poverty and stigma will return to plague her once it is spoken out loud Details of her life are sparse and often excruciating A lower middle-class upbringing The shame of having bronze skin with a white surname On my mother’s side of the family, my great-grandfather was a wealthy white man, who had many mistresses; one was a woman of African descent, his maid They had several children together and eventually married My great-grandmother loved her husband fastidiously They brought up their children in the big house; my grandfather and his sisters carried the white name, though, according to my mother, it would have been a kindness if my great-grandfather had given them my great-grandmother’s maiden name instead My great-grandmother would hide in another part of the house when my great-grandfather’s white friends would drive up the Montagne Longue mountain to see him   My mother took me to Montagne Longue only once, when I was around five years old I remember that she was with her eldest brother, and that we were in the region to visit a friend My uncle probably decided we should look at ‘our’ land again, though there was no former