The Journey of a Caribbean Writer

Maryse Condé

Translated by Richard Philcox

Distributed for Seagull Books

The Journey of a Caribbean Writer

Maryse Condé

Translated by Richard Philcox

For nearly four decades, Maryse Condé, best known for her novels Segu and Windward Heights, has been at the forefront of French Caribbean literature. In this collection of essays and lectures, written over many years and in response to the challenges posed by a changing world, she reflects on the ideas and histories that have moved her. From the use of French as her literary language—despite its colonial history—to the agonies of the Middle Passage, at the horrors of African dictatorship, and the politically induced poverty of the Caribbean to migration under globalization, Condé casts her unflinching eye over the world which is her inheritance, her burden, and her future.

Even while paying homage to her intellectual and literary influences—including Frantz Fanon, Leopold Sedar Senghor, and Aimé Césaire—Condé establishes in these pages the singularity of her vision and the reason for the enormous admiration that her writing has garnered from readers and critics alike.

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The Africa List

History: General History

Literature and Literary Criticism: General Criticism and Critical Theory

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Reviews

“Maryse Condé is one of the most important novelists writing today. Her stories are both historical and present, in the moment, murmuring secrets flavored with a Caribbean language of swishing rhythms, sweet as nectar, and lyrical as the swooshing skirts of the Guadeloupean women.”

Quincey Troupe, author of Transcircularities: New and Selected Poems and Miles: The Autobiography

Table of Contents

What is a Caribbean Writer?

Instructions on How to Become a ‘Caribbean’ Writer

Intimate Enemies: A Writer’s Reflection on Translation

Dangerous Liaison

Searching for Our Truths

The Voyager In, The Voyager Out

Beyond Languages and Colours

Césaire’s Negritude, Senghor’s Negritude

Why Negritude? Negritude or Revolution?

The Difficult Relationship with Africa: An Interview with Maryse Condé

Living on My Island, Guadeloupe

On the Other Side, Another Country: Africa as Seen by African American Writers

Globalization and Diaspora

Literature and Globalization

A Servant to Two Masters: Césaire and Fanon

Kréyol Factory

Lands of the Atlantic

Sketching a Literature from the French Antilles: From Negritude to Céolité

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