With Richard Philcox, Kaiama L. Glover, Edwidge Danticat, Madeleine Dobie, Brent Edwards, Mame-Fatou Niang, Pierre Force, Ronnie Scharfman, and Gayatri Spivak

Maryse Condé’s life and work were complex and layered; this two-day conference honors her legacies as an author, critic, scholar, and teacher by attending to some of the strands of thought opened up by her oeuvre.

Maryse Condé was one of the most distinguished voices in contemporary world literature. She was born in Guadeloupe on February 11, 1934, and died in Apt, France, on April 2, 2024. Condé studied at Université de Paris III and received a doctorate in Comparative Literature. She is the author of 16 novels as well as two memoirs and an important body of literary criticism. Her fiction foregrounds questions of diasporic Caribbean identity and migration, deracination and dislocation, and the ways in which gender intersects with these questions.  In recognition of her writing and service to Francophone culture, she was made a Chevalier in the Legion of Honor in 2014 and received a Grand Croix in the National Order of Merit in 2019. She was awarded the New Academy or “Alternative Nobel” Prize in Literature  in 2018, and shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2015 and 2023. Her fiction and criticism alike resonated with both the French-speaking world and international audiences, and helped to reimagine French studies—once focused on metropolitan French literature—as a field of Francophone studies that explores writing about and by French-speaking authors from countries and regions around the world.

In 1995, Condé joined the French Department at Columbia, where she chaired the Center for French and Francophone Studies from its foundation in 1997 to 2002. During her time at Columbia, she trained many students in Francophone literature, and is remembered by her colleagues for her remarkable ability to generate a mix of humor, intellectual rigor, and joy in any room as well as for her hospitality.

Wednesday, December 4, 6:00-8:30 PM
Homage to Maryse Condé I
Richard Philcox and Kaiama L. Glover 
Register here

Thursday, December 5, 6:00-8:30 PM
Homage to Maryse Condé II
Edwidge Danticat, Madeleine Dobie, Brent Edwards, Mame-Fatou Niang, Pierre Force, Ronnie Scharfman, and Gayatri Spivak
Register here