Maryse Condé
Guadeloupean author of epic fiction, best-known for her historical novel Ségou (1984-85). Condé’s novels question stereotypical images of literary characters, colonialism, sex and gender. She has also published children’s books, a booklet about Guadeloupe, book-length essays about francophone women writers and oral literatures in Martinique and Guadeloupe, critical booklets about Aimé Césaire’s Cahier d’un retour au pays natal, Antillean fiction, and numerous articles mainly about Caribbean literature and cultural studies.
Maryse Condé (née Boucolon) was born, 11 February 1937, in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe. She studied at the université de Paris III, Sorbonne, graduating docteur en lettres in comparative literature in 1976. Her research was on Black stereotypes in West Indian literature (”Stéréotypes du noir dans la littérature antillaise“). Early in her literary career, Condé tried her hand at dramatic writing. (She continued to write for the theater, her latest play, An tan revolisyon , appearing in 1989.) She took to the novel in the mid-seventies, producing Hérémakhonon (1976), followed a few years later by une Saison à Rihata (1981). It was not until her third and major novel, Ségou: Les Murailles de terre (1984), that Condé established her position among notable contemporary writers. Ségou: La Terre en miettes, part II of this great African saga, was published the following year.
More recent novels by Condé have earned her literary prizes: Moi, Tituba, sorcière noire de Salem (1986) was awarded the grand prix de la Femme 1986; la Vie scélérate (1987) received the highly coveted prix de l’Académie française 1988 (bronze medal).
Beside creative writing and erudition, Condé is a woman of wide reading and considerable insight into contemporary social issues which permeate her activities as critic, public lecturer, and teacher. Her criticism, includes monographic studies, anthologies, and articles in West African and Caribbean literatures.
Her public speaking mirrors the social and political consciousness which she expresses with admirable art in her novels. And there were numerous cultural or teaching engagements: at Lycée Charles de Gaulle in Saint Louis, Sénégal; at Radio France internationale and at the BBC, where she was program producer; at various divisions of the université de Paris–Jussieu, Nanterre, and Sorbonne, where she was chargé de cours (1980-1985); at California Institute of Technology; at the University of Virginia; and at the University of California, Berkeley, where she became tenured professor in January 1990. Not surprisingly, Condé has been the recipient of several scholarly fellowships, including a Fulbright Fellowship at Occidental College, Los Angeles; Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Writer-in-Residence; and J. S. Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship.
Selection of her works
Hérémakhonon: a story of a young black West Indian woman, Veronica, who is educated in Paris and searches her roots in Africa. In Paris she had a white lover, and in Africa she becomes the mistress of the Minister of Defence, who turns out to be thoroughly corrupt.
Une Saison à Rihata: in Rihata, a small sleepy backwater town in a fictitious African state, a couple and their family struggle to come to terms with each other against a background of political maneuvering and upheaval. Marie-Helene, far from her native home in Guadeloupe, lives unhappily with her African husband, Zek. Their uneasy existence is further disturbed by the arrival of Zek’s brother Madou, now Minister for Rural Development, on an official visit to Rihata. Murky events from the past resurface and send ripples through their lives. This portrait of an African community torn between progress and tradition and subject to the whims of a dictatorship unfolds through a subtle web of personal relationships.
Segu: set in an 18h-century African kingdom, Conde’s novel examines the cultural transformations brought about by the rise of Islam and the slave trade. It is 1797 in the African kingdom of Bambara, and the forces from the East that will drastically alter African civilization–slavery and Islam–are beginning to make themselves felt. The four sons of the noble Traore family demonstrate the various responses to these new elements: one embraces Islam, another makes a fortune as a trader, the third is forced into bondage, and the fourth becomes a Christian.
I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem: at the age of seven, Tituba watched as her mother was hanged for daring to wound a plantation owner who tried to rape her. She was raised from then on by Mama Yaya, a gifted woman who shared with her the secrets of healing and magic. But it was Tituba’s love of the slave John Indian that led her from safety into slavery, and the bitter, vengeful religion practiced by the good citizens of Salem, Massachusetts. Though protected by the spirits, Tituba could not escape the lies and accusations of that hysterical time.
Crossing the Mangrove: this novel-in-translation captures the lush landscape of the Caribbean. An outsider to the island, Francis Sancher, is found dead. His character is pieced together through a rich montage of voices as the villagers each contribute their knowledge of the secretive and mysterious man at his wake.
The Last of the African Kings : when he opposes French colonialism in his native Africa, regal Behanzin is exiled to the far-off island of Martinique. Maryse Condé tells the story of Behanzin’s scattered offspring and their lives in the Caribbean and the United States. She skillfully intertwines themes of exile, lost origins, and hope–with Africa hovering in the background.
Desirada: this novel takes place on the island of Guadeloupe, where Reynalda gives birth to a baby, Marie-Noelle, and then abandons the child. Ten years later, she summons her to France, where she is living with her new husband. Marie-Noelle, however, is permanently scarred by her mother’s lack of interest in her, and spends her life fantasizing about her true father, whose identity she doesn’t know.
