The Distinguished Writers Series: Maryse Condé November 9, 2010

Maryse Condé was born on the French island of Guadeloupe into a middle class family, the last of eight children. She first studied in Guadeloupe and then graduated from the Sorbonne in Paris with a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. She lived and worked in Conakry, Guinea, and Guadeloupe from the 1970s through the end of the 1980s, when she was invited by the University of California at Berkeley to teach Francophone literature. She has taught various American academic institutions, including the University of Virginia, Harvard, and lastly Columbia University, where she founded the French and Francophone Studies program. Her literary honors include the Grand Prix Litteraire de la Femme (1986) for I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, the Prix Marguerite Yourcenar (1999) for Tales from the Heart, True Stories from my Childhood and the Prix Carbet de la Caraibe (1997) for Desirada. Her works have been widely translated into many languages, and notably into English by her husband Richard Philcox. She divides her time between Guadeloupe and New York City.

Official Website: http://www.wellesley.edu/NCH/