Search results for ""Author Maryse Condé""

'An extraordinary storyteller' Bernardine Evaristo'People say that on the first night Francis Sancher spent in Rivière au Sel the wind in its temper screamed down from the mountains...'Francis Sancher always said he would come to an unnatural end. So when this handsome newcomer to the Guadeloupean village of Rivière au Sel is found dead, face down in the mud, no one is particularly surprised. Loved by some - especially women - and reviled by others, Francis was an enigmatic figure. Where did he come from? What caused his strange nocturnal wanderings? What devils haunted him? As the villagers come to pay their respects, they each reveal another piece of the mystery behind his life and death - and their own buried secrets and stories come to light.'The grand queen, the empress, of Caribbean literature' Fiammetta Rocco, Guardian

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For many, cooking is simply the mechanical act of reproducing standard recipes. To Maryse Condé, however, cooking implies creativity and personal invention, on par with the complexity of writing a story. A cook, she explains, uses spices and flavors the same way an author chooses the music and meaning of words. In Of Morsels and Marvels, Condé takes us on a literary journey around places she has travelled to in India, Indonesia, and South Africa. She highlights the tastes and culinary traditions that are fascinating examples of a living museum. Such places, Condé explains, provide important insights into lesser-known aspects of contemporary life. One anecdote illustrates what becomes of the standard Antillean dishes of fish stew and goat curry by two Antilleans who own a restaurant in Sydney, Australia. Cuisine changes not only according to the individual cook but also adapts to foreign skies under which it is created. The author also recounts personal memories of her lifelong relationship with cooking, such as when Adélia, her family’s servant, wrongly blames little Maryse for mixing raisins with fish and using her imagination in the kitchen. Blending travel with gastronomy, this enchanting volume from the winner of the 2018 Alternative Nobel Prize will delight all who marvel at the wonders of the kitchen or seek to taste the world.

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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. A book made up of many characters and countless stories, The Last of the African Kings skillfully intertwines the themes of exile, lost origins, memory, and hope. It is set mainly in the Americas, from the Caribbean to modern-day South Carolina, yet Africa hovers always in the background.

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For nearly four decades, Maryse Condé, best known for her novels Segu and Windward Heights, has been at the forefront of French Caribbean literature. In this collection of essays and lectures, written over many years and in response to the challenges posed by a changing world, she reflects on the ideas and histories that have moved her. From the use of French as her literary language — despite its colonial history — to the agonies of the Middle Passage, at the horrors of African dictatorship, and the politically induced poverty of the Caribbean to migration under globalisation, Condé casts her unflinching eye over the world which is her inheritance, her burden, and her future.Even while paying homage to her intellectual and literary influences — including Frantz Fanon, Leopold Sedar Senghor, and Aimé Césaire — Condé establishes in these pages the singularity of her vision and the reason for the enormous admiration that her writing has garnered from readers and critics alike.

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'Maryse Condé is an extraordinary storyteller who brings the history of an African kingdom alive as vividly as if it existed today. . . This is a great novel: unputdownable and unforgettable' Bernardine EvaristoWinner of the Alternative Nobel Prize for Literature 2018 The bestselling epic novel of family, treachery, rivalry, religious fervour and the turbulent fate of a royal African dynasty It is 1797 and the African kingdom of Segu, born of blood and violence, is at the height of its power. Yet Dousika Traore, the king's most trusted advisor, feels nothing but dread. Change is coming. From the East, a new religion, Islam. From the West, the slave trade. These forces will tear his country, his village and the lives of his beloved sons apart, in Maryse Condé's glittering epic.'Rich and colorful and glorious. It sprawls over continents and centuries to find its way into the reader's heart' - Maya Angelou'A stunning reaffirmation of Africa and its peoples... It's a starburst' - John A. Williams

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Maryse Conde is one of the best-known and most beloved French Caribbean literary voices. The author of more than twenty novels, she was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2015 and has long been recognized as a giant of black feminist literature. While Conde has previously published an autobiography of her childhood, What Is Africa to Me? tells for the first time the story of her early adult years in Africa years formative not only for her, but also for African colonies appealing for their own independence.What Is Africa to Me? traces the late 1950s to 1968, chronicling Conde's life in Sekou Toure's Guinea to her time in Kwame N'Krumah's Ghana, where she rubbed shoulders with Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Julius Nyerere, and Maya Angelou. Accusations of subversive activity resulted in Conde's deportation from Ghana. Settling down in Senegal, Conde ended her African years with close friends in Dakar including, filmmakers, activists, and Haitian exiles, before putting down more permanent roots in Paris. Conde's story is more than one of political upheaval, however; it is also the story of a mother raising four children as she battles steep obstacles, of a Guadeloupean seeking her identity in Africa, and of a young woman searching for her freedom and vocation as a writer. What Is Africa to Me? is a searing portrait of a literary genius it should not be missed.

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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. The doctor’s account illuminates the political and social complexities of race and class distinctions, the legacy of French colonialism that has spawned the movement for independence. Set in Jamaica, Nanna-ya explores the relationships that develop between George, a well-to-do store-owner, his wife, Grace, and his lover, Joyce. Their intertwined histories touch on a variety of racial and gender themes, which are handled with uncommon insight and subtlety. Like Land of Many Colors, Nanna-ya explores the difficulty of reconstructing historical narratives and recovering the experiences of people of color in the Caribbean.

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