For nearly four decades, Maryse Condé, best known for her novels Segu andWindward Heights, has been at the forefront of French Caribbean literature. In this collection of essays
and lectures, written over many years and in response to the challenges posed by a changing world, she reflects on the ideas and histories that have moved her. From the use of French as her
literary languagedespite its colonial historyto the agonies of the Middle Passage, at the horrors of African dictatorship, and the politically induced poverty of the Caribbean to migration
under globalization, Condé casts her unflinching eye over the world which is her inheritance, her burden, and her future.
Even while paying homage to her intellectual and literary influencesincluding Frantz Fanon, Leopold Sedar Senghor, and Aimé CésaireCondé establishes in these pages the singularity of her
vision and the reason for the enormous admiration that her writing has garnered from readers and critics alike.
