The Journey of a Caribbean Writer

Maryse Condé, Richard Philcox

• Publisher: Seagull Books
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780857427557, 9780857420978
• eBook ISBN: 9781803091228
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: Literature

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• 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 Créolité
• Notes