Maryse Conde and the Space of Literature

The Guadeloupean writer and critic Maryse Conde has for the last twenty-five years divided her time between her native Guadeloupe and the United States. If the authors work has attracted much critical attention in the United States, it is her fictional works that have been the focus of this attention, with these predominantly read in the light of political themes such as identity and resistance. In these intelligent and sensitive readings, Eva Sansavior argues in favour of adopting a broader thematic and generic approach to the authors work. Sansavior accounts for the multiple and oblique uses of literature in Condes literary and critical work tracking its complex interactions with tradition, reception, politics and autobiography, and also the singular possibilities that these interactions present for re- imagining the ideas of politics, literature, identity and, ultimately, the nature of critical practice itself. Eva Sansavior is Career Development Fellow in French (Francophone Caribbean Studies) at Oriel College, Oxford.

Eva Sansavior is Career Development Fellow in French (Francophone Caribbean Studies) at Oriel College, Oxford.