Maryse Condé, real name Marise Liliane Appoline Boucolon, was born on February 11, 1934 in Pointe-à-Pitre (Guadeloupe) and died on the night of April 1 to 2, 2024 in the hospital in Apt (Vaucluse).
Her English husband and translator, Richard Philcox, announced the sad news to Agence France Presse. Victim of a stroke a few years ago, Maryse Condé spoke with difficult, used a wheelchair and dictated her novels to her husband. Her health had deteriorated considerably in recent years.
The prolific writer left behind over thirty works (novels, plays, essays, children’s books, etc.).
In July 2007, Maryse Condé left her native island to settle in Paris then in Gordes, France, and donated almost 1,500 books from her personal library to the Médiathèque Caraïbe “Bettino Lara” (LAMECA) in Basse-Terre, a gift she wanted useful to Guadeloupe’s youth.
Feeling misunderstood, the author was also highly critical of Guadeloupe, and no one thought she would ever return to the land where she was born. However, Maryse Condé did return to the archipelago in December 2011, as the island of Désirade had decided to name its secondary school after her, in January 2016 to visit the Mémorial ACTe and see her friends again, and then in December 2018, as the Guadeloupeans had forgiven her by receiving her with honors after she was awarded the Alternative Nobel Prize for Literature in October 2018.
It must be said that during her career, the world-famous writer who has taught literature in France, in several African countries and in the United States, has received numerous literary prizes and distinctions.
On January 05, 2019, during her stay at home, Maryse Condé who was very emotional met dozens of readers in a bookshop in Baie-Mahault, her last exchange with the Guadeloupean public…
