The critically acclaimed, award-winning author of the classic historical novel Segu, Maryse Condé has pieced together the life of her maternal grandmother to create a moving and profound novel. Maryse Condé's personal journey of discovery and revelation becomes ours as we learn of Victoire, her white-skinned mestiza grandmother who worked as a cook for the Walbergs, a family of white Creoles, in the French Antilles. Using her formidable skills as a storyteller, Condé describes her grandmother as having "Australian whiteness for the color of her skin...She jarred with my world of women in Italian straw bonnets and men necktied in three-piece linen suits, all of them a very black shade of black. She appeared to me doubly strange." Victoire was spurred by Condé's desire to learn of her family history, resolving to begin her quest by researching the life of her grandmother. While uncovering the circumstances of Victoire's unique life story, Condé also comes to grips with a haunting question: How could her own mother, a black militant, have been raised in the Walberg's home, a household of whites? Creating a work that takes readers into a time and place populated with unforgettable characters that inspire and amaze, Condé's blending of memoir and imagination, detective work and storytelling artistry, is a literary gem that readers won't soon forget.

Product Description: This anthology seeks to introduce women writers in the "global" Francophone world by investigating the place of feminist, postcolonial and cross-cultural theories in interpreting women francophone literature. The book also allows the reader to examine the extent to which women writers reflect or negate the conventional archetypes of Francophone literature, how they reinvent the political, cultural and critical discourse of their time and place, and create their own identity from objectification to subjectivity...read more

A fictionalized account of the West Indian slave Tituba, who was accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, and was arrested and jailed for two years

Rendered frightened and penniless by her husband's mysterious violent death, Rosalie reluctantly taps her clairvoyant skills in order to support herself in post-apartheid South Africa, an endeavor during which she pursues answers for the events in her life.

Based on a true story about the 1995 murder of a Guadeloupe infant, the tale of a mysterious and seductive woman follows her determined search for the truth about her past, a quest that takes her to West Africa and Peru. By the author of Tales from the Heart and Segu. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

The Caribbean novelist delves into her own past for true tales of family life, first love, racism, and regional culture.

Product Description: 345pages. poche. broché.

Marie-Noelle, an illegitimate child searches for the mother who had abandoned her and the identity of her father in this novel of redemption set between Mexico, France, and the United States. Reprint.

An illegitimate child searches for mother and father in this novel of redemption set between Mexico, France, and the United States.

Product Description: Book by Conde, Maryse

The renowned Caribbean novelist puts a new spin on Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, resetting the story in Cuba with Creole characters.

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Product Description: Land of Many Colors is set in the fictional city of Fort Pilote in the French Caribbean. It opens with the deaths of a young liberation activist and his mother in 1984. The narrator, a doctor who handles both of these cases, attempts to reconstruct the history of the family through four generations...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The Last of the African Kings follows the wayward fortunes of a noble African family. It begins with the regal Béhanzin, an African king who opposed French colonialism and was exiled to distant Martinique. In the course of this brilliant novel, Maryse Condé tells of Béhanzin’s scattered offspring and their lives in the Caribbean and the United States...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This book is an exploration of the life and art of Maryse Condé, who first won international acclaim for Segu, a novel about West African experience and the slave trade. Born in Guadeloupe in 1937, Condé lived in Guinea after it won its independence from France...read more

The year is 1797, and the kingdom of Segu is flourishing, fed by the wealth of its noblemen and the power of its warriors. The people of Segu, the Bambara, are guided by their griots and priests; their lives are ruled by the elements. But even their soothsayers can only hint at the changes to come, for the battle of the soul of Africa has begun. From the east comes a new religion, Islam, and from the West, the slave trade. Segu follows the life of Dousika Traore, the king’s most trusted advisor, and his four sons, whose fates embody the forces tearing at the fabric of the nation. There is Tiekoro, who renounces his people’s religion and embraces Islam; Siga, who defends tradition, but becomes a merchant; Naba, who is kidnapped by slave traders; and Malobali, who becomes a mercenary and halfhearted Christian. Based on actual events, Segu transports the reader to a fascinating time in history, capturing the earthy spirituality, religious fervor, and violent nature of a people and a growing nation trying to cope with jihads, national rivalries, racism, amid the vagaries of commerce.

Product Description: In this beautifully crafted, Rashomon-like novel, Maryse Conde has written a gripping story imbued with all the nuances and traditions of Caribbean culture. Francis Sancher--a handsome outsider, loved by some and reviled by others--is found dead, face down in the mud on a path outside Riviere au Sel, a small village in Guadeloupe...read more

Set in the author's native Guadeloupe, this work features twisted lineages, lost birthrights, devastating family secrets, and the haunting spirits of the dead. Reprint.

Spanning several generations in the life of a Guadeloupean family as it rises from poverty to wealth, this work chronicles the lives of Albert I, family forebear; his son, Jacob; the martyred Jean; and others.

Sequel to Guadeloupan author Conde's highly praised Segu , this historical novel trudges through the 19th-century tribal wars, Islamic conquest and French occupation of the African kingdom of Segu, situated on the Niger River in what is now Mali. The many characters here, identified by their kinship bonds, flank themselves around the heirs of the Traore family, nobles formerly close to the throne. Now cousins Muhammad and Olubunmi are caught in the jihad waged by the fanatical El-Hadj Omar, whose son Amadou eventually rules Segu. Conde trains close attention on the tenets of Islam and the local animistic religion it displaces before shifting the action to Jamaica, where Christians from Segu seek refuge. But the bloody Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865 dashes their hopes. Returning to Africa, the saga focuses on devout Omar and his young wife, Kadija, the next generation of Traores, as the Segu resist the French.