Anti-racist, feminist, and writer: The Legacy of Maryse Condé - The Trials of the Century © Benoit Guillaume
Anti-racist, feminist, and writer: The Legacy of Maryse Condé - The Trials of the Century © Benoit Guillaume
Reading

Anti-racist, feminist and writer Maryse Condé's legacy

A graphic novel illustrated by Benoit Guillaume

Moderator: Rokhaya Diallo
With Alice Diop (director) and Felisa Vergara Reynolds (professor of French literature, University of Illinois)

With the participation of Caroline Chenu, in charge of research and collections at Mucem.

On the occasion of the anniversary of her birth and almost 2 years after her death, Les Procès du siècle revisits the figure of Maryse Condé, with whom the Mucem had the honor of building the event “Les amitiés de Maryse Condé” in November 2022.

In her works, the author—who first encountered racism upon arriving in Paris to study after growing up in Pointe-à-Pitre—has consistently addressed slavery, colonialism, migration, exile, racism, and championing women’s freedom and strength in the fight against oppression. Like Tituba, the heroine of her famous novel *I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem*—a young Black woman born as a result of her mother’s rape by an Englishman on a ship bound for Barbados.

A committed and inspiring writer, how does her legacy live on through a new generation of artists and intellectuals?