LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 13:5 May 2013
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Maryse Condé’s Deconstruction and Reconstruction of the Creole Identity

G. Vidya, M.A. (French), M.A. (English)

Abstract

The works of the Caribbean writer, Maryse Condé, are unique in modern Antillean literature as they express an open and humanist vision of the Antillean society, a society comprising a complex Creole identity with its ancestral roots in Africa and a religion which is a blend of Catholicism and Voodoo. This paper focuses on the rhizomatous aspect of the Creole identity which becomes the driving force of the characters of Maryse Condé, to undergo a series of displacement in the process of finding their true identity.

Keywords: Caribbean, Creole, Maryse Condé, Displacement, Identity, Francophone.

Prolific Francophone Caribbean Writer

Maryse Condé is the most prolific among the Francophone Caribbean women writers. A major novelist, essayist, playwright and a former Professor of African and Caribbean literature, Condé, over a period of thirty five years, (from her first novel, Heremakhonon (1976) to La vie Sans Fards 2012) has published some sixteen novels, eight plays, several children’s books and a collection of short stories. Some of her works have been awarded prestigious literary prizes including “Grand Prix littéraire de la Femme’ for Moi, Tituba, sorcière noire de Salem, Prix de l’ Academie Française for La vie scélérate.

Born in 1937 in Guadeloupe at Pointe-à-Pitre, Condé constantly migrated between three continents (Europe, Africa and North America). She left Guadeloupe at the age of sixteen in 1953, lived in France, England, West Africa (Ivory Coast, Guinea, Ghana and Senegal) and the United States before returning to Guadeloupe in 1986. Her return was not definitive and in 1990’s she moved to the United States to take up various teaching positions. Now retired, the author divides her time between the Caribbean, North America and Europe. It was during the period of her return to Guadeloupe that Condé began writing her novels. Her extensive travel and her critical thought contribute majorly to her creative and other writing.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

G. Vidya, M.A. (French), M.A. (English)
Assistant Professor of French
Faculty of English and Foreign Languages
Gandhigram Rural Institute-Deemed University
Gandhigram – 624 302
Tamilnadu
India
widyag@gmail.com
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