Maryse Condé, A Life Between Literature and History

The renowned writer Maryse Condé, who died on April 2 at the age of 90, crossed boundaries throughout her life, both in her work and her ways of being in the world. In novels, plays, and essays, she explored histories of the Caribbean and Africa in a unique and often ironic literary voice. A giant in Francophone literature, Condé was also a beloved teacher, who trained students for a decade in the French department at Columbia University.

We honor her memory with a tribute evening featuring her friend and colleague, Maboula Soumahoro, of the Université de Tours and a current Fellow at the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, where she is working on a screen adaptation of Segu, Condé’s epic masterpiece of 1984. She will be joined by Xavier Luce, of Sorbonne Université, who recently completed his doctoral thesis on Condé’s oeuvre, for a conversation moderated by Thomas Dodman, director of HiLi, Columbia’s History and Literature MA program at Reid Hall, and a current Institute Fellow.

This event is part of a workshop on “History and Literature: Fact and Fiction,” jointly sponsored by Newcastle University, the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, Columbia Global Center in Paris, and Columbia’s MA in History and Literature.