Biography of Maryse Condé

Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, 1934. A young girl who grew up between the islands and France studied classical letters, then anthropology. Her view of the world was forged through fractures — colonial, racial, generic. She went to Senegal to teach, then to Canada, the United States, in France — always somewhere else, always beside herself. At 70, she wrote her greatest novel — Traversée de la mangrove (1989) — and won the Prix Renaudot. Her work, entirely traversed by colonial violence and its survivals, makes her one of the great voices of contemporary Francophone literature. She died on September 18, 2024 in Paris, at the age of 90.

In brief

Key dates

From anthropology to the novel — a postcolonial trajectory

Born in Guadeloupe to a Guadeloupean mother and a Réunionnais father, Maryse Condé crossed the Atlantic several times during her life. After studies in France, she taught French in West Africa (Senegal), then went to North America and the United States, where she pursued an academic career in anthropology and African studies.

The major works — Ségou, Tituba, La Vie scélérate and the Mangrove

Ségou (1984-1985) is her first major success: a historical epic of the Bambara Empire, marked by erudite precision and epic ambition. Moi, Tituba sorcière… Noire de Salem (1986) rewrites the 1692 witch trials from the point of view of a Black Caribbean woman. La Vie scélérate (1987) and Traversée de la mangrove (1989, Prix Renaudot) established her as one of the major voices of Francophone literature.

Complete bibliography

The pages below detail each work by Maryse Condé with its editions and translations.

• Hérémakhonon (1976) — novel
• Ségou (1984-1985) — historical novel
• Moi, Tituba sorcière… Noire de Salem (1986) — novel
• La Vie scélérate (1987) — novel
• Traversée de la mangrove (1989) — novel
• Les Derniers Rois mages (1992) — novel
• La Migration des cœurs (1995) — novel
• Desirada (1997) — novel
• Célanire cou-coupé (2000) — novel
• Histoire de la femme cannibale (2005) — novel
• En attendant la montée des eaux (2010) — novel
• Le Fabuleux et triste destin d’Ivan et d’Ivana (2017) — novel
• L’Évangile du nouveau monde (2021) — novel

Sources and references

1. « Maryse Condé », Wikipedia (French version), https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryse_Cond%C3%A9
2. Open Library data: https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL2501739A

• Célanire cou-coupé — Roman (2000)
• Desirada — Roman (1997)
• En attendant la montée des eaux — Roman (2010)
• Hérémakhonon — Roman (1976)
• Histoire de la femme cannibale — Roman (2005)
• L'Évangile du nouveau monde — Roman (2021)
• La Migration des cœurs — Roman (1995)
• La Vie scélérate — Roman (1987)
• Le Fabuleux et triste destin d'Ivan et d'Ivana — Roman (2017)
• Les Derniers Rois mages — Roman (1992)
• Moi, Tituba sorcière… Noire de Salem — Roman (1986)
• Ségou — Roman historique (tome 1 : Les Murailles de terre, 1984 ; tome 2 : La Terre en miettes, 1985)
• Traversée de la mangrove — Roman (1989)