Event overview
A celebration of the work of Maryse Condé in the Caribbean context
This in-person, bilingual conference is jointly organised by the Centre for Comparative Literature and the Centre for Caribbean and Diaspora Studies, with the Institut français du Royaume-Uni, and the support of the Institute for Languages, Cultures and Societies, School of Advanced Study, University of London.
A round table will be held at the Institute Français on the afternoon of 9 May 2024.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE CONFERENCE HAS BEEN RELOCATED TO SENATE HOUSE
* We express our profound sadness at the news of Maryse Condé’s passing on 2 April 2024. Our symposium, celebrating her work, will take on a different, more sombre mood, but we will want to celebrate her life too. As she writes in Tituba, the dead remain ‘here, all around us, eager for attention, eager for affection.’ We shall feel her presence, and give her our attention and affection. *
Maryse Condé is the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe’s most fêted author, one of the French-speaking world’s greatest writers, the recipient of numerous major prizes and accolades, and the author of novels, plays, short stories, children’s books, memoirs and essays that criss-cross the Caribbean and the Black diaspora.
This conference will examine how crossings manifest themselves not only geographically, but in multiple intersecting ways in Maryse Condé’s works. The conference will also honour her remarkable oeuvre by exploring its interconnections with, and impact on Caribbean literature, theatre and thought more broadly.
Migration and exile in all directions along the triangular trans-Atlantic route – between Africa, the Caribbean and South America, between the Americas and Africa, between the Caribbean and Europe, between Europe and Africa – feature in much of her work, as do journeys that are more than merely spatial and include visitations from the world of spirits to the living by ancestors and parents, representing haunting, spectral stories that illustrate how the past – histories of enslavement, the Middle Passage, colonial occupation, racial discrimination, bereavement, filial alienation – resurfaces in successive generations. But the interaction between spirits and the living can also be protective, and establish connections between the sacred and the secular, thought and nature, animate and inanimate worlds, providing characters with insights and solace.
The notion of ‘crossing’, which features in the title of one of Condé’s novels, Crossing the Mangrove (1989), will guide enquiries and debates over the course of our conference.
For more information on the event and the programme
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 10 May 2024 | 9:00am - 6:30pm |
Accessibility
If you are attending an event and need the College to help with any mobility requirements you may have, please contact the event organiser in advance to ensure we can accommodate your needs.
