Maryse Condé
- France
- Zu Gast beim ilb: 2008
Maryse Condé was born in Pointe-à-Pitre,
st1:place>Guadeloupe
/st1:place> in 1937. At the age of seventeen, she went to
st1:city>
st1:place>Paris
/st1:place>
/st1:city> and studied literature at the Sorbonne. After marrying an actor, she followed him back to his African homeland. There she experienced the first crisis-ridden years of independence, from the perspective of several countries. She returned to
st1:city>
st1:place>Paris
/st1:place>
/st1:city> in the seventies and worked as a lecturer at a number of universities and completed her doctoral thesis in 1975. Her first two novels, which followed a run of plays, deal with the search for identity of young black women from the French Antilles. They go to
st1:place>Africa
/st1:place> and have to learn that they cannot define themselves by their race.
Condé achieved international recognition with her mostly historical novels, in which she plays with the stereotypes of cultural identity and where she opposes the euro-centric view of history with black perceptions. The two volume novel »Ségou« (1984/1985; »Segu« and »The Children of Segu«, 1987) addresses loss of tradition and the demise of the distinguished extended family, Traoré, in the
st1:place>
st1:placetype>kingdom
/st1:placetype> of
st1:placename>Ségou
/st1:placename>
/st1:place>. The four sons, their children and children’s children succumb to different influences, the Islamisation, European »discovery« and Christian missionaries, the slave handlers, and finally the French conquest.
»Moi, Tituba, sorcière noire de
st1:city>
st1:place>Salem
/st1:place>
/st1:city>« (1986; »I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem«, 1992) – a novel about the
st1:city>
st1:place>Salem
/st1:place>
/st1:city> witch trials in 1692 – reinterprets, from a black perspective, a historical event that has become part of Western cultural heritage. »La Migration des cœurs« (1995; »
st1:place>
st1:placename>Windward
/st1:placename>
st1:placetype>Heights
/st1:placetype>
/st1:place>«, 1998) is a black adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic »
st1:place>
st1:placename>Wuthering
/st1:placename>
st1:placetype>Heights
/st1:placetype>
/st1:place>«. The author’s latest prose works include »Histoire de la femme cannibale« (2003; »The Story of the Cannibal Woman«, 2007) und »Victoire des saveurs et des mots« (2006; t: Victory of the tastes and words).
Condé has edited several anthologies and written many academic texts as well as short stories and children’s books. After receiving a Fulbright grant which took her to the in 1985, she increasingly spent time there teaching at several universities, including, until 2004,
st1:place>
st1:city>Columbia University
/st1:city>,
st1:state>New York
/st1:state>
/st1:place>, where she set up the
st1:place>
st1:placetype>school
/st1:placetype> of
st1:placename>Francophone Studies
/st1:placename>
/st1:place> which is dedicated to French speaking literature from the
st1:place>Caribbean
/st1:place>.
Amongst her numerous accolades are the Grand Prix Littéraire de la Femme, the Prix Marguerite Yourcenar, the Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe and the Prix Tropiques. Condé is honourable member of the Académie des lettres du Québec, Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur. She divides her time between
st1:state>
st1:place>New York
/st1:place>
/st1:state> and
st1:place>Guadeloupe
/st1:place>, living with her second husband Richard Philcox, who has translated much of her work into English. Her most recent play »Comme deux frères« (t: Like two brothers) was performed in
st1:place>Guadeloupe
/st1:place>,
st1:place>
st1:city>Martinique
/st1:city>,
/st1:place> and the
© international literature festival berlin
Ich, Tituba, die schwarze Hexe von Salem
Droemer Knaur
München, 1988
[Ü:Ingeborg Ebel]
Segu
Kiepenheuer & Witsch
Köln, 1988
[Ü: Ulrich Wittmann]
Wie Spreu im Wind
Kiepenheuer & Witsch
Köln, 1993
[Ü: Ulrich Wittmann]
Das verfluchte Leben
Hammer
Wuppertal, 1995
[Ü: Volker Rauch]
Sturminsel
Hoffmann und Campe
Hamburg, 1997
[Ü: Klaus Laabs]
Insel der Vergangenheit
Hoffmann und Campe
Hamburg, 1999
[Ü: Claudia Kalscheuer]
Histoire de la femme cannibale
Mercure de France
Paris, 2003
Victoire des saveurs et des mots
Mercure de France
Paris, 2006
Übersetzung: Nathalie Mälzer-Semlinger, Ulrich Wittman, Volker Rauch, Klaus Laabs, Claudia Kalscheuer