Our own Déborah Ferrand shares glowing notes from her trip to Carleton College, with Sarah Boardman and Séverine Bates, to hear Maryse Condé last week:
Some of us had the extreme pleasure to attend the lecture given by Maryse Condé at Carleton University on April 20th. As graduate students and future specialists of francophone literature, it was really an honour to meet such an incredible woman and author.
Two French 1004 students decided to come along with us, they wanted to know more about her life. Before going to Carleton, I wondered how to make them understand the intensity and meaning of meeting Maryse Condé and listening to her. I ended up telling them that it was pretty much like meeting a rock star of literature. But she is much more than that for the people who got the opportunity and pleasure to read and analyze her novels. She not only wrote remarkable novels, but she is also very involved in the crafting of French schools curriculums, as she makes sure that slavery and colonialism be taught.The talk was first entitled « Journey of a Carribean woman » but she later decided to change it to « Searching for one's voice. » She asked herself what it is to write Maryse Condé (to write in her own language)? Where do her voice, her style and themes come from? This conference falls directly in the line of her current work as she explained she is writing her autobiography. She talked about her life and influences and how she was raised in a climate of adoration for the French language and literature and repression of the Creole language. Only when she studied at the Lycée Fénélon (in the Classes préparatoires aux Grandes écoles) in Metropolitan France did she discover who Aimé Césaire and the négritude movement were, and above all what it really meant to be black and Caribbean. These discoveries and her desire to know her African origins, would explain her fascination for Africa, its people and culture as well as her decision to go live there with her first husband. Africa would soon become her source of inspiration for her first novel. She described this African adventure as the first part of her life as a woman and writer, the second part being, according to her, her return to Guadeloupe and the third, her life in America.
Besides being an amazing orator (she talked for one and a half hours without any notes), Maryse Condé is also a very approachable and generous woman. She came accompanied by her husband, Richard Philcox, who is also her translator for English, an interesting fact that I did not know.
In the end, it was the opportunity of a lifetime to meet an author we all read and worked on, and we are thrilled we attended this very special event.
