WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.319 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are 00:00:02.319 --> 00:00:05.480 not just looking at a writer. We are, I think, 00:00:05.519 --> 00:00:09.019 looking at a force of nature. Oh, absolutely. 00:00:09.220 --> 00:00:11.119 A force of nature is the perfect way to put it. 00:00:11.160 --> 00:00:13.279 We're unpacking the life and mind of a woman 00:00:13.279 --> 00:00:16.559 who defied practically every single box the world 00:00:16.559 --> 00:00:18.960 tried to put her in. We're talking about a literary 00:00:18.960 --> 00:00:22.300 titan who recently left us, but whose voice is 00:00:22.300 --> 00:00:26.079 probably louder now than it's ever been. We are. 00:00:26.160 --> 00:00:28.399 We're talking about the one and only Mary Skande. 00:00:28.519 --> 00:00:31.839 A truly fascinating subject. And so timely, like 00:00:31.839 --> 00:00:34.060 you said, because we're reflecting on her massive 00:00:34.060 --> 00:00:37.159 legacy following her passing just recently. In 00:00:37.159 --> 00:00:40.939 April of 2024, she was 90 years old. 90. What 00:00:40.939 --> 00:00:43.140 a 90 years. I know, it's a long time, but when 00:00:43.140 --> 00:00:44.920 you look at what she packed into those decades, 00:00:45.119 --> 00:00:47.179 it honestly feels like she lived about five different 00:00:47.179 --> 00:00:49.299 lives. It really does. I was looking through 00:00:49.299 --> 00:00:51.920 the research stack, and just the geography alone 00:00:51.920 --> 00:00:55.159 is dizzying. You've got Guadeloupe, Paris, West 00:00:55.159 --> 00:00:58.439 Africa, the U .S., back to France. It's all over 00:00:58.439 --> 00:01:00.539 the map. But usually, you know, when we look 00:01:00.539 --> 00:01:03.380 at writers from the Caribbean, specifically Guadeloupe 00:01:03.380 --> 00:01:07.459 in her case, there's this expectation of what 00:01:07.459 --> 00:01:09.439 their story is supposed to be. Oh, there's a 00:01:09.439 --> 00:01:12.769 script. Exactly, you know the drill The themes 00:01:12.769 --> 00:01:16.069 of exile, the tragic return home, the desperate 00:01:16.069 --> 00:01:19.069 search for roots. It's almost a genre unto itself. 00:01:19.310 --> 00:01:21.390 Precisely. And while Condé dealt with all of 00:01:21.390 --> 00:01:24.670 that, exile, roots, identity, colonialism, she 00:01:24.670 --> 00:01:27.250 did it in a way that just completely dismantled 00:01:27.250 --> 00:01:29.390 the traditional narrative. How so? Well, she 00:01:29.390 --> 00:01:31.870 was a living paradox. Here is a writer born in 00:01:31.870 --> 00:01:34.469 Guadeloupe who spent her formative adult years 00:01:34.469 --> 00:01:37.769 in Africa searching for that, you know, that 00:01:37.769 --> 00:01:40.390 ancestral connection, only to realize she didn't 00:01:40.390 --> 00:01:42.480 fit there either. She is an outsider in both 00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:44.260 places. She didn't fit in Europe. She ultimately 00:01:44.260 --> 00:01:46.560 didn't even fit the standard definition of a 00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:48.840 Caribbean writer or any of the movements that 00:01:48.840 --> 00:01:50.939 were popular at the time. She basically created 00:01:50.939 --> 00:01:53.219 her own category. She just refused to sit at 00:01:53.219 --> 00:01:55.680 anyone else's table. She really did. She famously 00:01:55.680 --> 00:01:59.120 said, I write in Mary's Condé. I love that quote. 00:01:59.500 --> 00:02:02.299 Not in French, not in Creole, but in her own 00:02:02.299 --> 00:02:05.340 singular language. And that quote, I think, is 00:02:05.340 --> 00:02:07.400 the North Star for this entire discussion. It's 00:02:07.400 --> 00:02:10.120 a declaration of absolute independence. I write 00:02:10.120 --> 00:02:13.159 in Mary's Condé. It's so powerful. But before 00:02:13.159 --> 00:02:15.319 we get into the weeds of her philosophy and her 00:02:15.319 --> 00:02:18.979 incredibly complex life journey, I want to start 00:02:18.979 --> 00:02:21.159 with something that really illustrates the scale 00:02:21.159 --> 00:02:23.939 of her achievement. We have to talk about the 00:02:23.939 --> 00:02:28.250 alternative Nobel. Ah, yes. The new Academy Prize 00:02:28.250 --> 00:02:31.050 in Literature. This is such a wild story, and 00:02:31.050 --> 00:02:32.250 I feel like a lot of people might have missed 00:02:32.250 --> 00:02:34.449 the details because of the controversy surrounding 00:02:34.449 --> 00:02:37.069 the main prize at the time. So take us back to 00:02:37.069 --> 00:02:40.490 2018. Okay, so 2018, the literary world is gearing 00:02:40.490 --> 00:02:42.409 up for the Nobel Prize announcement, and then 00:02:42.409 --> 00:02:46.310 just absolute silence. Nothing. It was unprecedented. 00:02:46.469 --> 00:02:49.129 The Swedish Academy, which is the body that awards 00:02:49.129 --> 00:02:51.909 the Nobel, was completely engulfed in this massive 00:02:51.909 --> 00:02:54.389 scandal. It was a huge mess. We're talking about 00:02:54.389 --> 00:02:58.210 allegations of... Sexual assault, financial impropriety, 00:02:58.289 --> 00:03:01.909 leaks. It was a complete institutional meltdown. 00:03:02.009 --> 00:03:04.550 I mean, it was so bad that they had to cancel 00:03:04.550 --> 00:03:06.990 the prize for that year just to restructure and 00:03:06.990 --> 00:03:09.490 and try to restore confidence. Which leaves a 00:03:09.490 --> 00:03:12.590 vacuum. But. The literary world didn't want a 00:03:12.590 --> 00:03:15.750 year without a winner. Exactly. A group of Swedish 00:03:15.750 --> 00:03:18.210 intellectuals, librarians and cultural figures 00:03:18.210 --> 00:03:20.810 felt that literature shouldn't have to suffer 00:03:20.810 --> 00:03:23.009 because of the committee's failures. So they 00:03:23.009 --> 00:03:25.229 they basically went rogue. They just did it themselves. 00:03:25.490 --> 00:03:28.229 They formed the new academy. They invited librarians 00:03:28.229 --> 00:03:30.669 all across Sweden to nominate authors and they 00:03:30.669 --> 00:03:33.650 held a public vote. And finally, an expert jury 00:03:33.650 --> 00:03:36.069 made the final selection. It was a much more 00:03:36.069 --> 00:03:38.590 democratic, transparent version of the Nobel. 00:03:38.889 --> 00:03:40.370 That's what I love about it. It wasn't just. 00:03:40.460 --> 00:03:43.120 a stuffy committee in a back room deciding what's 00:03:43.120 --> 00:03:45.900 important. It was a groundswell of support from 00:03:45.900 --> 00:03:49.199 actual readers and librarians. Yes. And out of 00:03:49.199 --> 00:03:52.340 everyone in the world, the winner was Mary Skande. 00:03:52.500 --> 00:03:54.719 Which really speaks to her standing. I mean, 00:03:54.740 --> 00:03:57.340 she had been a whispered favorite for the actual 00:03:57.340 --> 00:04:00.020 Nobel for years, always on the betting list, 00:04:00.180 --> 00:04:02.960 but never quite winning. And what did the citation 00:04:02.960 --> 00:04:06.680 say? Why her? The New Academy citation, it really 00:04:06.680 --> 00:04:09.400 nailed why she mattered. They praised her for 00:04:09.400 --> 00:04:12.039 describing the ravages of colonialism and the 00:04:12.039 --> 00:04:15.699 post -colonial chaos, but doing so in a language 00:04:15.699 --> 00:04:19.040 that was, and I love this, precise and overwhelming. 00:04:19.319 --> 00:04:22.100 Precise and overwhelming. That is such a visceral 00:04:22.100 --> 00:04:24.500 description for a writer. And I feel like that 00:04:24.500 --> 00:04:26.899 sums up the mission of this deep dive today. 00:04:27.100 --> 00:04:29.319 We want to understand what made her voice so 00:04:29.319 --> 00:04:32.040 overwhelming. It is a journey worth taking. We're 00:04:32.040 --> 00:04:34.160 going to unpack the life of a woman who... rubs 00:04:34.160 --> 00:04:36.899 shoulders with Malcolm X and Che Guevara, a woman 00:04:36.899 --> 00:04:38.839 who didn't even publish her first novel until 00:04:38.839 --> 00:04:41.259 she was nearly 40. Incredible, isn't it? And 00:04:41.259 --> 00:04:43.199 a woman who refused to let anyone else define 00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:45.920 her. And to understand the woman who ended up 00:04:45.920 --> 00:04:49.079 on that stage in 2018 accepting that prize, we 00:04:49.079 --> 00:04:51.459 have to start way, way back in the beginning. 00:04:51.600 --> 00:04:54.019 We have to go to the source. Okay, let's set 00:04:54.019 --> 00:04:57.300 the scene. It's 1934, Puente Peter, Guadalupe. 00:04:57.550 --> 00:05:00.709 So to understand Maryse Condé, you have to understand 00:05:00.709 --> 00:05:03.389 the specific class dynamics she was born into. 00:05:03.509 --> 00:05:06.370 This is key. Okay. She was not born into poverty, 00:05:06.529 --> 00:05:09.389 which is such a common trope in Caribbean literature 00:05:09.389 --> 00:05:11.649 of that era. You know, the struggling artist 00:05:11.649 --> 00:05:14.129 rising from the cane fields. That was not her 00:05:14.129 --> 00:05:16.930 story. Not at all. Her birth name was Maryse 00:05:16.930 --> 00:05:20.230 Lillian Apolline Bucolon. Her parents were the 00:05:20.230 --> 00:05:23.050 definition of the black bourgeoisie. The notes 00:05:23.050 --> 00:05:25.350 mention her mother directed a school for girls 00:05:25.350 --> 00:05:30.089 and her father founded a bank. A bank. That sounds 00:05:30.089 --> 00:05:32.129 incredibly established for that time and place. 00:05:32.250 --> 00:05:35.129 It was. Her father, Auguste Bucolon, founded 00:05:35.129 --> 00:05:38.689 La Banque Antelese. In the 1930s, in a French 00:05:38.689 --> 00:05:41.329 colony like Guadeloupe, being black and owning 00:05:41.329 --> 00:05:44.230 a bank was a massive, massive statement of status. 00:05:44.550 --> 00:05:47.230 They were pillars of the community. But crucially, 00:05:47.310 --> 00:05:49.370 they were also deeply assimilated into French 00:05:49.370 --> 00:05:51.730 culture. They saw themselves as French citizens, 00:05:51.930 --> 00:05:53.529 first and foremost. They were proud of their 00:05:53.529 --> 00:05:55.389 education, their manners, their connection to 00:05:55.389 --> 00:05:57.569 the mother country. So she grows up in this environment 00:05:57.569 --> 00:06:01.899 of... prestige and maybe a little bit of pretension. 00:06:02.139 --> 00:06:04.540 But there was a unique family dynamic, right? 00:06:04.660 --> 00:06:06.139 It wasn't just about the money. It was about 00:06:06.139 --> 00:06:08.220 the family structure itself. It was all about 00:06:08.220 --> 00:06:11.060 age. Mary's was the youngest of eight children. 00:06:11.240 --> 00:06:14.920 Eight. But the age gap was massive. Her mother 00:06:14.920 --> 00:06:18.639 was 43 when Mary's was born. Her father was 63. 00:06:18.860 --> 00:06:21.540 63. That's essentially grandfather's age. Exactly. 00:06:21.800 --> 00:06:24.139 Yeah. Her next oldest brother, Guy, had been 00:06:24.139 --> 00:06:27.279 born 11 years before her. So she grows up in 00:06:27.279 --> 00:06:29.699 this house full of adults or siblings who are 00:06:29.699 --> 00:06:31.699 practically adults and already leaving the nest. 00:06:31.959 --> 00:06:34.339 She must have been so isolated in a way. She 00:06:34.339 --> 00:06:38.040 described herself as l 'enfant gâté, the spoiled 00:06:38.040 --> 00:06:41.180 child. The spoiled child. That's such a loaded 00:06:41.180 --> 00:06:43.220 phrase. Did she mean it in a negative way? Not 00:06:43.220 --> 00:06:45.500 really. She owned it. She attributed it to her 00:06:45.500 --> 00:06:47.740 parents' age. When you have a child that late 00:06:47.740 --> 00:06:50.279 in life and there's such a gap, that child often 00:06:50.279 --> 00:06:53.139 occupies a very... special, sometimes isolated 00:06:53.139 --> 00:06:56.459 position. She was doted on. She was given everything 00:06:56.459 --> 00:06:59.939 she wanted. But she was also lonely. She was 00:06:59.939 --> 00:07:02.839 observing the adult world from a kind of pedestal. 00:07:02.959 --> 00:07:04.879 She wasn't running around the streets with the 00:07:04.879 --> 00:07:07.279 neighborhood kids in the same way. And usually 00:07:07.279 --> 00:07:10.379 that kind of isolation combined with access to 00:07:10.379 --> 00:07:12.420 education, I mean, her house must have been full 00:07:12.420 --> 00:07:15.660 of books. That breeds creativity. Oh, for sure. 00:07:15.779 --> 00:07:18.540 I saw that she started writing incredibly early. 00:07:18.759 --> 00:07:22.279 How early? Before she was 12. And get this for 00:07:22.279 --> 00:07:26.000 confidence, she wrote a one -act, one -person 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:29.199 play as a birthday gift for her mother. That 00:07:29.199 --> 00:07:31.720 is amazing. Happy birthday, Mom. For your gift, 00:07:31.720 --> 00:07:33.939 you get to watch me perform a play I wrote about 00:07:33.939 --> 00:07:37.079 myself. That is some serious main character energy. 00:07:37.339 --> 00:07:39.620 It shows a desire to project her voice, doesn't 00:07:39.620 --> 00:07:42.060 it? But it also hints at the rebellion to come. 00:07:42.480 --> 00:07:45.060 She was not a docile child. She was absorbing 00:07:45.060 --> 00:07:47.439 all this high French, culture -reading French 00:07:47.439 --> 00:07:50.500 classics, learning the manners. But she was chafing 00:07:50.500 --> 00:07:52.339 against the constraints of her class. Right, 00:07:52.379 --> 00:07:54.560 because being bourgeois in Guadeloupe at that 00:07:54.560 --> 00:07:56.660 time meant acting a certain way. You had to be 00:07:56.660 --> 00:08:00.279 proper. You had to represent the race well. Exactly. 00:08:00.279 --> 00:08:02.540 You had to uphold the image of respectability. 00:08:02.819 --> 00:08:05.519 And Mary's, well... She struggled with that. 00:08:05.560 --> 00:08:07.639 She was naturally inquisitive and maybe a bit 00:08:07.639 --> 00:08:10.040 wild. She graduated high school, and then, as 00:08:10.040 --> 00:08:12.319 was the custom for her class, she was sent to 00:08:12.319 --> 00:08:14.879 the Lycée Fenelon in Paris. The natural next 00:08:14.879 --> 00:08:17.300 step. Go to the mother country to finish your 00:08:17.300 --> 00:08:19.779 education and become a proper French lady. That 00:08:19.779 --> 00:08:22.120 was the plan. But the mother country didn't exactly 00:08:22.120 --> 00:08:24.000 embrace her, and she certainly didn't embrace 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:26.079 the rules. What happened? She was expelled after 00:08:26.079 --> 00:08:28.939 two years. Expelled? From a prestigious school 00:08:28.939 --> 00:08:31.660 like that? That's a big deal. Do we know the 00:08:31.660 --> 00:08:34.590 specific incident? The records are a bit vague 00:08:34.590 --> 00:08:37.990 on the one big incident, but they suggest a general, 00:08:38.070 --> 00:08:40.529 persistent, rebellious nature. She just wasn't 00:08:40.529 --> 00:08:42.970 falling in line. She was loud. She was opinionated. 00:08:43.149 --> 00:08:45.009 And she was discovering Paris wasn't what she 00:08:45.009 --> 00:08:47.250 thought it was. That's the key. She was discovering 00:08:47.250 --> 00:08:49.789 that the France her parents idolized, this land 00:08:49.789 --> 00:08:52.990 of liberty, equality, fraternity, was actually 00:08:52.990 --> 00:08:56.289 a cold, alienating place for a black woman. The 00:08:56.289 --> 00:08:58.629 racism she encountered in Paris was a shock compared 00:08:58.629 --> 00:09:01.070 to her protected upbringing in Guadeloupe. So 00:09:01.070 --> 00:09:02.850 she gets kicked out of the family. Nancy Lacey. 00:09:03.649 --> 00:09:06.090 Does she go home in shame? Does she apologize 00:09:06.090 --> 00:09:09.669 to her banker father? Absolutely not. She doubles 00:09:09.669 --> 00:09:13.210 down. She moves to the Sorbonne Nouvelle to study 00:09:13.210 --> 00:09:15.649 literature, but she's not studying. She's getting 00:09:15.649 --> 00:09:18.070 politically organized. Oh, interesting. She helps 00:09:18.070 --> 00:09:20.629 establish the Luis Carlos Prestes Club. Luis 00:09:20.629 --> 00:09:23.450 Carlos Prestes, the Brazilian communist leader. 00:09:23.549 --> 00:09:26.289 The very same. So you have this young woman from 00:09:26.289 --> 00:09:29.679 a spoiled conservative. Up a middle class background 00:09:29.679 --> 00:09:32.399 in Guadalupe, moving to Paris, getting kicked 00:09:32.399 --> 00:09:35.019 out of prep school, and then diving headfirst 00:09:35.019 --> 00:09:38.539 into leftist anti -colonial politics. Wow. She's 00:09:38.539 --> 00:09:41.679 shedding that bourgeois skin and fast. That is 00:09:41.679 --> 00:09:43.700 a radical pivot. Yeah. It's like she looked at 00:09:43.700 --> 00:09:45.799 the path that was laid out for her and just took 00:09:45.799 --> 00:09:48.279 a hard left turn. And that political awakening, 00:09:48.320 --> 00:09:50.840 that sets the stage for the next arguably most 00:09:50.840 --> 00:09:53.120 defining chapter of her life. Oh, absolutely. 00:09:53.440 --> 00:09:55.740 We need to talk about the African Odyssey. This 00:09:55.740 --> 00:09:58.299 is The Crucible. This is where Marius Kande is 00:09:58.299 --> 00:10:01.139 truly forged. Without these next 12 years, we 00:10:01.139 --> 00:10:03.639 just don't get the writer we know. And I think 00:10:03.639 --> 00:10:05.340 we need to pause here and contextualize this 00:10:05.340 --> 00:10:08.039 for you, the listener, because today we have 00:10:08.039 --> 00:10:12.139 a very specific view of going back to Africa. 00:10:12.970 --> 00:10:14.850 It's often seen through a genealogical lens, 00:10:15.009 --> 00:10:17.950 right? DNA tests, tourism, finding your specific 00:10:17.950 --> 00:10:21.009 tribe. Exactly. But in the late 1950s, this was 00:10:21.009 --> 00:10:23.950 a geopolitical movement. Absolutely. It was the 00:10:23.950 --> 00:10:26.649 era of independence. The winds of change were 00:10:26.649 --> 00:10:29.649 blowing across the continent. Ghana becomes independent 00:10:29.649 --> 00:10:34.210 in 57. Guinea in 58. There was this feeling among 00:10:34.210 --> 00:10:37.049 the black diaspora in the U .S., the Caribbean, 00:10:37.250 --> 00:10:41.190 Europe, that Africa was rising. The sleeping 00:10:41.190 --> 00:10:43.330 giant was waking up. And they needed to be part 00:10:43.330 --> 00:10:45.590 of it. They wanted to help build this new world. 00:10:45.649 --> 00:10:47.710 It wasn't just about visiting. It was about contributing 00:10:47.710 --> 00:10:50.289 to a revolution. It was an ideological quest. 00:10:50.509 --> 00:10:52.629 Exactly. It was idealistic. It was romantic. 00:10:52.690 --> 00:10:55.389 And Condé gets completely swept up in this current. 00:10:55.610 --> 00:10:57.769 It all started with a play, appropriately enough. 00:10:57.889 --> 00:11:00.629 In 1958, she was at a rehearsal for Jean Genet's 00:11:00.629 --> 00:11:03.669 famous play, The Blacks. And there, she met a 00:11:03.669 --> 00:11:06.029 Guinean actor named Mamadou Condé. And things 00:11:06.029 --> 00:11:08.950 moved pretty fast from there. Very fast. They 00:11:08.950 --> 00:11:12.509 married in August 1958, and by November 1959, 00:11:12.710 --> 00:11:16.070 she was moving to Africa. But here is the first 00:11:16.070 --> 00:11:19.330 crack in the romantic facade, and it's a detail 00:11:19.330 --> 00:11:21.830 that's often missed. What's that? The relationship 00:11:21.830 --> 00:11:23.950 was already crumbling before she even left Paris. 00:11:24.149 --> 00:11:26.360 Wait, really? She moved to a continent she'd 00:11:26.360 --> 00:11:28.360 never been to with a husband she was already 00:11:28.360 --> 00:11:29.860 having trouble with. Well, actually, she moved 00:11:29.860 --> 00:11:33.139 to the Ivory Coast alone first to teach. She 00:11:33.139 --> 00:11:35.340 eventually rejoined Mamadou in Guinea and they 00:11:35.340 --> 00:11:38.039 had children together. But the marriage was fraught 00:11:38.039 --> 00:11:40.700 from the start. But the drive to be in Africa, 00:11:40.879 --> 00:11:43.000 to connect with that part of her heritage, it 00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:45.039 was stronger than the problems in her marriage. 00:11:45.220 --> 00:11:47.320 She was chasing an idea, a dream of belonging. 00:11:47.639 --> 00:11:50.720 She was. So she spends the 1960s. essentially 00:11:50.720 --> 00:11:53.019 the entire decade, bouncing between the Ivory 00:11:53.019 --> 00:11:56.200 Coast, Guinea, Ghana, and Senegal. This is a 00:11:56.200 --> 00:11:58.940 tour of the absolute hot spots of West African 00:11:58.940 --> 00:12:01.440 independence. And look at the timing. She's in 00:12:01.440 --> 00:12:04.279 Guinea under Sekou Touré. She's in Ghana under 00:12:04.279 --> 00:12:06.860 Swamin Krumah. She is right in the center of 00:12:06.860 --> 00:12:08.919 the experiment of African socialism. She's not 00:12:08.919 --> 00:12:11.100 watching it on the news. She's living it. She 00:12:11.100 --> 00:12:13.340 says she became politically conscious through 00:12:13.340 --> 00:12:15.960 a group of Marxist friends in Guinea and the 00:12:15.960 --> 00:12:20.070 name she drops in her memoirs. It's like a who's 00:12:20.070 --> 00:12:22.549 who of 20th century revolutionaries. It's staggering, 00:12:22.750 --> 00:12:24.730 isn't it? She rubbed shoulders with Malcolm X 00:12:24.730 --> 00:12:27.690 during his tours of Africa. She met Che Guevara. 00:12:27.929 --> 00:12:30.250 She knew Julius Nyerere, the future president 00:12:30.250 --> 00:12:33.149 of Tanzania. She was friends with Maya Angelou, 00:12:33.230 --> 00:12:35.210 who was living in Ghana at the same time. Can 00:12:35.210 --> 00:12:37.710 you just imagine the conversations in those rooms? 00:12:37.929 --> 00:12:40.210 You have the American civil rights leaders, the 00:12:40.210 --> 00:12:42.769 Caribbean intellectuals, the African revolutionaries, 00:12:42.789 --> 00:12:46.509 all trying to figure out how to dismantle imperialism. 00:12:46.509 --> 00:12:48.230 It must have felt like the most exciting place 00:12:48.230 --> 00:12:52.250 on earth. to be in 1962. It sounds like a utopia 00:12:52.250 --> 00:12:55.289 of black radical thought. But, and this is the 00:12:55.289 --> 00:12:57.929 but that defines Condé's entire career. It wasn't 00:12:57.929 --> 00:13:00.049 the paradise she expected. Let's dig into that. 00:13:00.090 --> 00:13:02.289 Yeah. Because I think the easy narrative is she 00:13:02.289 --> 00:13:04.490 went to Africa and found herself and lived happily 00:13:04.490 --> 00:13:06.769 ever after. But that's not what happened at all. 00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:09.159 Not even close. She went looking for belonging. 00:13:09.279 --> 00:13:12.039 She went expecting to be embraced as a returning 00:13:12.039 --> 00:13:14.639 daughter, a long -lost sister coming home from 00:13:14.639 --> 00:13:17.299 across the water. And the reality was? The reality 00:13:17.299 --> 00:13:20.279 was she was often seen as an outsider. She was 00:13:20.279 --> 00:13:23.419 seen as a tuba. Tuba. That's the West African 00:13:23.419 --> 00:13:25.580 slang for a white person, isn't it? Or a foreigner. 00:13:25.759 --> 00:13:27.940 Right. A westerner. Even though she was black. 00:13:28.429 --> 00:13:31.090 Her culture, her dress, her mannerisms, her language. 00:13:31.409 --> 00:13:33.970 They were French. The local populations didn't 00:13:33.970 --> 00:13:36.250 see her as one of them. They saw her as a French 00:13:36.250 --> 00:13:39.070 woman with black skin. Exactly. And she writes 00:13:39.070 --> 00:13:42.470 about the pain of that realization, that skin 00:13:42.470 --> 00:13:44.750 color was not enough to bridge the cultural gap 00:13:44.750 --> 00:13:46.769 of centuries. That must have been devastating. 00:13:47.110 --> 00:13:49.850 To reject Europe, run to Africa, and then be 00:13:49.850 --> 00:13:53.559 told, you're European. It was a profound identity 00:13:53.559 --> 00:13:56.159 crisis. And politically, she was seeing the cracks 00:13:56.159 --> 00:13:59.299 too. She witnessed what she called many contradictory 00:13:59.299 --> 00:14:02.600 events. She saw that the end of colonialism didn't 00:14:02.600 --> 00:14:04.659 magically solve all the problems. It just created 00:14:04.659 --> 00:14:07.700 new ones. It often birthed new corruptions, dictatorships, 00:14:07.700 --> 00:14:11.059 and chaos. She saw the new African leaders acting 00:14:11.059 --> 00:14:13.220 just as oppressively as the colonizers they'd 00:14:13.220 --> 00:14:16.279 replaced. Sekou Touré in Guinea, for example, 00:14:16.279 --> 00:14:19.059 became increasingly authoritarian. And it got 00:14:19.059 --> 00:14:21.730 dangerous for her too. This wasn't just intellectual 00:14:21.730 --> 00:14:23.629 disappointment. She was actually deported from 00:14:23.629 --> 00:14:27.169 Ghana. Yes. After Nkrumah was overthrown in a 00:14:27.169 --> 00:14:30.250 coup, the mood changed instantly. Foreigners, 00:14:30.250 --> 00:14:32.309 especially those associated with the previous 00:14:32.309 --> 00:14:35.110 regime, were immediately suspect. She was accused 00:14:35.110 --> 00:14:37.950 of suspected subversive activity. Was she a spy? 00:14:38.529 --> 00:14:41.129 Or involved in something? No, no. She was just 00:14:41.129 --> 00:14:43.409 an intellectual with opinions, associating with 00:14:43.409 --> 00:14:45.710 the wrong people at the wrong time. But being 00:14:45.710 --> 00:14:49.139 kicked out... being labeled a subversive it just 00:14:49.139 --> 00:14:51.840 shattered the dream so this period which lasted 00:14:51.840 --> 00:14:56.009 until 1972 It destroyed that romanticized view 00:14:56.009 --> 00:14:58.529 of Africa that was so popular in the diaspora. 00:14:58.649 --> 00:15:00.850 It completely destroyed it, specifically the 00:15:00.850 --> 00:15:02.909 ideas of the Negritude movement. Right. We should 00:15:02.909 --> 00:15:04.570 define that quickly for the listener just so 00:15:04.570 --> 00:15:06.110 we understand what she was reacting against. 00:15:06.549 --> 00:15:08.990 Negritude. Negritude was a literary and political 00:15:08.990 --> 00:15:11.629 movement led by people like Aimé Césaire from 00:15:11.629 --> 00:15:14.710 Martinique and Léopold Sédar Senghor from Senegal. 00:15:14.990 --> 00:15:18.509 The core idea was a unified black identity. that 00:15:18.509 --> 00:15:20.590 all black people, regardless of where they lived, 00:15:20.750 --> 00:15:24.190 shared a common African soul or essence. All 00:15:24.190 --> 00:15:26.230 right. Celebrated traditional Africa as a source 00:15:26.230 --> 00:15:29.570 of pride, rhythm, purity. Very essentialist. 00:15:29.649 --> 00:15:32.350 Very. And Conde is living the reality on the 00:15:32.350 --> 00:15:35.210 ground and saying this essence theory, it's not 00:15:35.210 --> 00:15:38.549 holding up. She lived the messy, complicated 00:15:38.549 --> 00:15:42.159 truth. She realized that shared ancestry didn't 00:15:42.159 --> 00:15:44.759 mean shared culture or shared politics. I feel 00:15:44.759 --> 00:15:47.340 like that experience is the fuel for everything 00:15:47.340 --> 00:15:49.820 that comes later. Because when she finally starts 00:15:49.820 --> 00:15:52.240 writing novels, she isn't writing fairy tales. 00:15:52.360 --> 00:15:54.379 She's writing about that mess. She's writing 00:15:54.379 --> 00:15:57.360 about that friction. But notice the timing. She 00:15:57.360 --> 00:16:00.059 leaves Africa in 1972. She worked for the BBC 00:16:00.059 --> 00:16:01.980 in London for a bit, then goes back to Paris 00:16:01.980 --> 00:16:04.399 to teach. But she doesn't publish her first novel 00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:08.990 until 1976. She was 42 years old. Yes. That is 00:16:08.990 --> 00:16:11.450 late, especially for someone who started writing 00:16:11.450 --> 00:16:14.669 a play at age 12. She clearly has this insane 00:16:14.669 --> 00:16:18.789 life experience. Yeah. Why until 42? She was 00:16:18.789 --> 00:16:21.029 very open about this. She said she lacked confidence. 00:16:21.090 --> 00:16:23.370 Really? She said she did not dare present her 00:16:23.370 --> 00:16:25.950 writing to the outside world. She felt intimidated 00:16:25.950 --> 00:16:28.090 by the great writers she admired. She just didn't 00:16:28.090 --> 00:16:30.919 think her voice was literary enough. That is 00:16:30.919 --> 00:16:33.360 so wild to hear from someone who would become 00:16:33.360 --> 00:16:35.419 a Nobel contender. It just goes to show you, 00:16:35.480 --> 00:16:37.799 imposter syndrome hits everyone. Doesn't matter 00:16:37.799 --> 00:16:40.220 who you are. And when she finally did start, 00:16:40.419 --> 00:16:42.960 she didn't tiptoe in. She kicked the door down. 00:16:43.580 --> 00:16:46.820 Her first novel was Hera Maconon. Let's unpack 00:16:46.820 --> 00:16:49.580 that title. Hera Maconon. It's a Malinky word. 00:16:49.720 --> 00:16:52.620 It literally means waiting for happiness. Which 00:16:52.620 --> 00:16:54.860 sounds lovely. Yeah. A nice story about finding 00:16:54.860 --> 00:16:58.480 joy. It was anything but. The book was a firestorm. 00:16:59.049 --> 00:17:02.009 It was published in 76. And get this. It was 00:17:02.009 --> 00:17:04.529 actually pulled from the shelves of several bookstores 00:17:04.529 --> 00:17:08.009 in Africa and heavily criticized in Paris. Pulled 00:17:08.009 --> 00:17:10.269 from the shelves. Why? Was it sexually explicit 00:17:10.269 --> 00:17:11.890 or something? It wasn't the sex, though there 00:17:11.890 --> 00:17:14.390 was that. It was the politics. The book was a 00:17:14.390 --> 00:17:17.049 blistering critique of the success of African 00:17:17.049 --> 00:17:20.970 socialism. Oh, wow. Remember. In the 70s, supporting 00:17:20.970 --> 00:17:23.190 these independent African movements was almost 00:17:23.190 --> 00:17:26.029 a sacred duty for black intellectuals. You don't 00:17:26.029 --> 00:17:28.369 criticize the revolution. You supported the cause. 00:17:28.609 --> 00:17:31.349 And here comes Condé saying, actually, this is 00:17:31.349 --> 00:17:33.930 failing. This is corrupt. The emperor has no 00:17:33.930 --> 00:17:36.250 clothes. She was airing the dirty laundry in 00:17:36.250 --> 00:17:38.809 public. She was critiquing the very thing she 00:17:38.809 --> 00:17:41.109 had gone to Africa to find, and the protagonist. 00:17:41.589 --> 00:17:43.529 The book is written as a first -person narrative, 00:17:43.609 --> 00:17:46.109 and it so closely parallels Conde's own life. 00:17:46.329 --> 00:17:48.869 But she stressed very heavily that it was not 00:17:48.869 --> 00:17:51.250 an autobiography. Did you call it? She called 00:17:51.250 --> 00:17:54.279 the main character an anti -moi. An anti -self. 00:17:54.559 --> 00:17:56.920 Ooh, I like that concept, an anti -self. Break 00:17:56.920 --> 00:17:59.519 that down for me. The character, Veronica, is 00:17:59.519 --> 00:18:02.839 a wealthy, educated, Guadalupean woman in Africa. 00:18:03.440 --> 00:18:06.200 But she isn't a hero. She isn't noble. She's 00:18:06.200 --> 00:18:09.420 characterized by what Condé called sexual libertinage. 00:18:09.799 --> 00:18:12.319 She sleeps with a minister in the corrupt government, 00:18:12.460 --> 00:18:15.200 a man she knows is corrupt. Wow. She's indifferent 00:18:15.200 --> 00:18:17.680 to the suffering of the people around her. She's 00:18:17.680 --> 00:18:19.640 searching for identity, but she's doing it in 00:18:19.640 --> 00:18:22.259 a way that is selfish, messy, and not at all 00:18:22.259 --> 00:18:24.250 the noble. sufferer that people expected from 00:18:24.250 --> 00:18:26.589 black female characters. So she alienates the 00:18:26.589 --> 00:18:29.369 political left by criticizing socialism. She 00:18:29.369 --> 00:18:31.230 alienates the nationalists by showing corrupt 00:18:31.230 --> 00:18:34.049 Africa. And she alienates traditionalists with 00:18:34.049 --> 00:18:37.349 a promiscuous anti -heroine. She really was fearless. 00:18:37.630 --> 00:18:39.750 Or perhaps she just couldn't be anything other 00:18:39.750 --> 00:18:42.609 than honest about her complexity. She refused 00:18:42.609 --> 00:18:45.390 to write propaganda. She wanted to explore the 00:18:45.390 --> 00:18:48.329 ambiguity of being a wealthy, educated black 00:18:48.329 --> 00:18:51.750 woman in a poor black country. That power dynamic 00:18:51.950 --> 00:18:54.690 fascinated her. Now, around this time, her personal 00:18:54.690 --> 00:18:57.170 life is changing, too. She divorced Mama Ducande 00:18:57.170 --> 00:18:59.950 in 1981, although they didn't separate for a 00:18:59.950 --> 00:19:03.029 long time. And then she makes a partnership that 00:19:03.029 --> 00:19:05.170 becomes incredibly important to her career. Yes. 00:19:06.089 --> 00:19:09.089 She meets Richard Philcox. Right. They married 00:19:09.089 --> 00:19:12.849 in 1982. Richard Philcox is British, a white 00:19:12.849 --> 00:19:15.750 Englishman. And he became the English language 00:19:15.750 --> 00:19:18.150 translator for almost all of her novels. That 00:19:18.150 --> 00:19:20.049 is such a unique dynamic. We'll definitely talk 00:19:20.049 --> 00:19:22.009 more about their specific process later because 00:19:22.009 --> 00:19:23.630 it gets really intense at the end of her life. 00:19:23.849 --> 00:19:25.930 But it's interesting that her voice to the English 00:19:25.930 --> 00:19:27.890 speaking world is filtered through her white. 00:19:28.400 --> 00:19:31.119 British husband. It absolutely is. And it allowed 00:19:31.119 --> 00:19:34.220 her to have a global reach that many Francophone 00:19:34.220 --> 00:19:37.059 writers struggle to achieve. But it also speaks 00:19:37.059 --> 00:19:39.740 to her refusal to be bound by racial categories 00:19:39.740 --> 00:19:42.240 in her personal life. She loved who she loved. 00:19:42.359 --> 00:19:44.920 So she's 40 something. She's published this controversial 00:19:44.920 --> 00:19:47.779 book that got pulled from shelves. She is known, 00:19:47.880 --> 00:19:50.660 but she isn't a superstar yet. When does she 00:19:50.660 --> 00:19:52.460 actually become a legend? When does she get put 00:19:52.460 --> 00:19:54.690 on the map? That would be with her third novel, 00:19:54.829 --> 00:19:57.430 Segu, which was published in two volumes in 1984 00:19:57.430 --> 00:20:01.170 and 1985. Segu. Okay, this is the big one. If 00:20:01.170 --> 00:20:04.170 you only read one Condé book, this is usually 00:20:04.170 --> 00:20:05.950 the recommendation. This is the blockbuster. 00:20:06.150 --> 00:20:09.029 It's this massive historical epic set in the 00:20:09.029 --> 00:20:12.029 Bambra Empire of Mali. So we're going back before 00:20:12.029 --> 00:20:15.329 full colonization. We start. In the late 18th, 00:20:15.329 --> 00:20:19.009 early 19th century, the Bamber Empire was a powerful 00:20:19.009 --> 00:20:23.049 animist kingdom. Condé traces its decline. But 00:20:23.049 --> 00:20:25.569 she does it in a very specific way. She follows 00:20:25.569 --> 00:20:28.369 the family of a nobleman, Dusica Traoré. It's 00:20:28.369 --> 00:20:31.869 a saga. It feels like Roots or 100 Years of Solitude 00:20:31.869 --> 00:20:33.869 or something. It's a massive saga. Dusica has 00:20:33.869 --> 00:20:35.690 these children who are scattered by the winds 00:20:35.690 --> 00:20:38.359 of history. One becomes a soldier in the French 00:20:38.359 --> 00:20:40.559 colonial army, turning against his own people. 00:20:40.779 --> 00:20:44.000 One converts to Islam. One is sold into slavery 00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:46.660 and ends up in Brazil. Another stays and tries 00:20:46.660 --> 00:20:48.619 to fight the changes. So it sounds like she's 00:20:48.619 --> 00:20:51.119 trying to encompass the entire black diaspora. 00:20:51.470 --> 00:20:54.130 in one family tree that is exactly what she is 00:20:54.130 --> 00:20:57.369 doing she is examining the roots not as a single 00:20:57.369 --> 00:21:00.289 tap root going down into the earth but as a rhizome 00:21:00.289 --> 00:21:02.890 spreading out in all directions she shows the 00:21:02.890 --> 00:21:05.029 arrival of islam the arrival of the europeans 00:21:05.029 --> 00:21:07.509 and the slave trade as these massive disrupting 00:21:07.509 --> 00:21:10.190 forces and it was a bestseller it was huge it 00:21:10.190 --> 00:21:13.029 sold hundreds of thousands of copies it proved 00:21:13.029 --> 00:21:15.289 that she wasn't just a provocateur she was a 00:21:15.289 --> 00:21:17.970 master storyteller it had the narrative drive 00:21:17.970 --> 00:21:20.430 of a thriller but the depth of a history textbook 00:21:20.779 --> 00:21:23.619 It allowed her to explore those themes of slavery 00:21:23.619 --> 00:21:26.480 and colonialism, but with a level of historical 00:21:26.480 --> 00:21:29.619 detail that captivated readers worldwide. It 00:21:29.619 --> 00:21:31.700 made her a household name in France. And once 00:21:31.700 --> 00:21:33.640 she had that success, she just kept reinventing 00:21:33.640 --> 00:21:35.720 herself. She didn't stick to this historical 00:21:35.720 --> 00:21:37.799 epic formula, which would have been the easy 00:21:37.799 --> 00:21:40.700 path. Not at all. She moves from the epic history 00:21:40.700 --> 00:21:42.880 of Segu to something completely different, like 00:21:42.880 --> 00:21:46.680 I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem in 1986. I love 00:21:46.680 --> 00:21:49.220 the concept of this book. We all know the Salem 00:21:49.220 --> 00:21:53.180 Witch Trials. We know T. Tuba, the slave woman 00:21:53.180 --> 00:21:55.920 who was one of the first accused. But usually 00:21:55.920 --> 00:21:58.700 in history books or in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, 00:21:58.779 --> 00:22:01.500 she's just a footnote. A prop. She's a prop in 00:22:01.500 --> 00:22:03.690 the white character's drama. Precisely. In Miller's 00:22:03.690 --> 00:22:06.109 play, she's a minor figure who triggers the plot 00:22:06.109 --> 00:22:08.950 but has no interior life. She's just a plot device. 00:22:09.230 --> 00:22:11.750 So Conde takes that footnote and makes her the 00:22:11.750 --> 00:22:14.630 protagonist. She reimagines the entire history 00:22:14.630 --> 00:22:17.430 from Tituba's perspective. That's such a powerful 00:22:17.430 --> 00:22:20.069 act of reclaiming history, giving a voice to 00:22:20.069 --> 00:22:22.470 the voiceless. And it's deeply feminist. Conde 00:22:22.470 --> 00:22:25.369 gives Tituba a sexuality, a spirituality, and 00:22:25.369 --> 00:22:28.210 a sharp wit. She isn't just a victim, she's a 00:22:28.210 --> 00:22:30.890 survivor. Conde fills in the gaps of this historical 00:22:30.890 --> 00:22:33.500 record with fiction, saying, if history won't 00:22:33.500 --> 00:22:36.400 tell her story, I will. She even has Tituba interact 00:22:36.400 --> 00:22:39.140 with Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter. She's 00:22:39.140 --> 00:22:41.259 mixing history and literature in this wonderful 00:22:41.259 --> 00:22:43.700 postmodern way. And then she does it again with 00:22:43.700 --> 00:22:47.039 Windward Heights in 1995. Ah, yes. Her reworking 00:22:47.039 --> 00:22:49.559 of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Which is 00:22:49.559 --> 00:22:52.579 such a bold move. I mean, Wuthering Heights is 00:22:52.579 --> 00:22:54.720 a sacred text to some people. You don't just 00:22:54.720 --> 00:22:57.460 mess with Heathcliff and Cathy. Unless you are 00:22:57.460 --> 00:23:00.220 Mary Scondé. She had read Bronte when she was 00:23:00.220 --> 00:23:03.200 14. It stayed with her, the passion, the violence, 00:23:03.279 --> 00:23:05.640 the outsider on the moors. But she did something 00:23:05.640 --> 00:23:08.119 brilliant. She set the story in Guadalupe and 00:23:08.119 --> 00:23:12.200 Cuba. Heathcliff becomes Razier, a darker -skinned 00:23:12.200 --> 00:23:14.859 outsider in a Caribbean context that's completely 00:23:14.859 --> 00:23:18.039 defined by colorism. She called it a perverse 00:23:18.039 --> 00:23:21.319 but joyful game. That's the quote. She said to 00:23:21.319 --> 00:23:23.400 be part of so many worlds, part of the African 00:23:23.400 --> 00:23:25.720 world because of the African slaves, part of 00:23:25.720 --> 00:23:27.819 the European world because of the European education 00:23:27.819 --> 00:23:30.920 is a kind of double entendre. Double entendre. 00:23:30.960 --> 00:23:33.619 Two meanings. She used her heritage, which she 00:23:33.619 --> 00:23:36.700 saw as a mix, a hybrid to reshape a classic of 00:23:36.700 --> 00:23:38.950 European literature. She wasn't asking for permission 00:23:38.950 --> 00:23:40.670 to enter the cannon. She was taking the cannon 00:23:40.670 --> 00:23:43.309 and making it her own. She was saying, my Caribbean 00:23:43.309 --> 00:23:45.890 landscape is just as dramatic, just as worthy 00:23:45.890 --> 00:23:49.049 of high tragedy as the Yorkshire Moors. She really, 00:23:49.089 --> 00:23:51.740 she refused to be pigeonholed. And that leads 00:23:51.740 --> 00:23:53.440 us to this whole question of identity, which 00:23:53.440 --> 00:23:56.319 we touched on at the start. She really resisted 00:23:56.319 --> 00:23:59.460 being labeled as a French writer or even a Caribbean 00:23:59.460 --> 00:24:01.660 writer in the traditional sense. She did. And 00:24:01.660 --> 00:24:03.500 you have to remember, in the Caribbean, literary 00:24:03.500 --> 00:24:06.420 movements are very serious business. We mentioned 00:24:06.420 --> 00:24:08.440 Negritude earlier, the African roots movement. 00:24:08.680 --> 00:24:12.299 But later, in the 80s and 90s, there was Creolite. 00:24:12.559 --> 00:24:15.000 Right. Led by writers like Patrick Chamoiseau. 00:24:15.099 --> 00:24:18.200 What was their pitch? Creolite argued that Caribbean 00:24:18.200 --> 00:24:21.690 identity wasn't African or... European, but distinctly 00:24:21.690 --> 00:24:24.549 Creole. It focused on the specific language, 00:24:24.609 --> 00:24:27.450 culture and hybridity of the islands. They wanted 00:24:27.450 --> 00:24:30.329 writers to write in Creole or a French that mimicked 00:24:30.329 --> 00:24:32.869 Creole structures. They had a manifesto called 00:24:32.869 --> 00:24:35.890 In Praise of Creoleness. And Conde's reaction? 00:24:36.130 --> 00:24:37.829 She was basically like, nope, not joining that 00:24:37.829 --> 00:24:40.509 club either. Why? I mean, it sounds like it fits 00:24:40.509 --> 00:24:42.309 her better than Negritude. It acknowledges the 00:24:42.309 --> 00:24:45.390 hybridity. She found it too prescriptive. She 00:24:45.390 --> 00:24:47.809 felt Creolite was just another set of rules telling 00:24:47.809 --> 00:24:50.029 writers how they should write to be authentic. 00:24:50.490 --> 00:24:52.769 She didn't want to be told she had to use Creole 00:24:52.769 --> 00:24:55.569 words to be a real Guadalupean writer. She wanted 00:24:55.569 --> 00:24:58.119 freedom. She wanted the freedom to be cosmopolitan. 00:24:58.220 --> 00:25:00.740 She wanted the freedom to write about Salem or 00:25:00.740 --> 00:25:04.019 Africa or Paris without having to check a box 00:25:04.019 --> 00:25:07.279 first. I write in Mary's Conde. There it is again. 00:25:07.319 --> 00:25:09.259 It's a declaration of independence. She's saying, 00:25:09.299 --> 00:25:12.059 my experience is the only validity I need. But 00:25:12.059 --> 00:25:14.799 we have to be clear. Just because she rejected 00:25:14.799 --> 00:25:17.059 these political movements doesn't mean she wasn't 00:25:17.059 --> 00:25:19.259 political. Oh, absolutely not. She admitted she 00:25:19.259 --> 00:25:21.619 couldn't write anything without political significance. 00:25:21.920 --> 00:25:23.940 She said, I have nothing else to offer that remains 00:25:23.940 --> 00:25:26.180 important. Her work is drenched in politics, 00:25:26.420 --> 00:25:30.299 feminism, race, colonialism. I mean, look at 00:25:30.299 --> 00:25:33.910 Tree of Life. La vie c 'est la route. She tackles 00:25:33.910 --> 00:25:36.289 the building of the Panama Canal and how that 00:25:36.289 --> 00:25:39.130 affected the West Indian middle class, a huge 00:25:39.130 --> 00:25:41.849 historical event that's often ignored. Look at 00:25:41.849 --> 00:25:44.450 Victoire, which is a fictional biography of her 00:25:44.450 --> 00:25:47.589 maternal grandmother. It explores the fight for 00:25:47.589 --> 00:25:49.829 black rights in Guadeloupe. So she was always 00:25:49.829 --> 00:25:52.930 looking at power dynamics. Always. She just refused 00:25:52.930 --> 00:25:55.640 to follow a party line. She critiqued everyone, 00:25:55.740 --> 00:25:58.220 white colonizers, black dictators, men, women. 00:25:58.519 --> 00:26:01.480 No one was safe from her analysis. And she wasn't 00:26:01.480 --> 00:26:03.400 just writing novels in a room either. She was 00:26:03.400 --> 00:26:06.220 a serious scholar. A formidable academic career. 00:26:06.519 --> 00:26:09.160 This is the other side of the coin. She taught 00:26:09.160 --> 00:26:12.519 at the Sorbonne, at Berkeley, at UCLA. She was 00:26:12.519 --> 00:26:15.059 a professor emerita at Columbia University in 00:26:15.059 --> 00:26:17.500 New York. She actually chaired the Center for 00:26:17.500 --> 00:26:19.900 French and Francophone Studies there. So she's 00:26:19.900 --> 00:26:22.119 teaching the very subjects she's deconstructing 00:26:22.119 --> 00:26:24.819 in her fiction. Exactly. And helping to define 00:26:24.819 --> 00:26:26.900 the field of Francophone literature for a new 00:26:26.900 --> 00:26:29.720 generation of students. She was introducing American 00:26:29.720 --> 00:26:32.200 students to Caribbean literature, but always 00:26:32.200 --> 00:26:34.539 teaching them to question the labels. She brought 00:26:34.539 --> 00:26:37.000 that same rigorous questioning spirit to the 00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:39.339 classroom. I want to fast forward a bit to the 00:26:39.339 --> 00:26:42.180 later years because her story doesn't just fade 00:26:42.180 --> 00:26:44.819 away into retirement. We mentioned the new Academy 00:26:44.819 --> 00:26:48.000 Prize in 2018. That was a huge moment of recognition 00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:51.269 for her. It was. It validated her entire career. 00:26:51.690 --> 00:26:54.309 To be chosen as the alternative to the Nobel 00:26:54.309 --> 00:26:57.650 is a statement that you are at the absolute peak 00:26:57.650 --> 00:27:00.190 of world literature. It was a crowning achievement. 00:27:00.589 --> 00:27:02.470 But physically, things were getting harder for 00:27:02.470 --> 00:27:05.470 her. Yes. She developed a degenerative neurological 00:27:05.470 --> 00:27:08.750 disorder. It was never publicly named as a specific 00:27:08.750 --> 00:27:11.230 disease like Parkinson's, but the effects were 00:27:11.230 --> 00:27:13.650 severe. It made it difficult for her to see. 00:27:13.769 --> 00:27:16.890 She eventually went blind and difficult to speak 00:27:16.890 --> 00:27:19.250 or use her hands. This brings us back to her 00:27:19.250 --> 00:27:23.089 husband, Richard Philcox. Their partnership became 00:27:23.089 --> 00:27:25.829 even more crucial in this final chapter. It went 00:27:25.829 --> 00:27:29.490 from professional to, well, existential. It's 00:27:29.490 --> 00:27:32.349 incredibly moving. For her 2023 novel, The Gospel, 00:27:32.589 --> 00:27:35.329 according to The New World, she physically couldn't 00:27:35.329 --> 00:27:37.390 write it herself. She couldn't type. She couldn't 00:27:37.390 --> 00:27:39.470 see the page. So how did they do it? How was 00:27:39.470 --> 00:27:41.650 the book written? She dictated the entire book 00:27:41.650 --> 00:27:44.589 to Richard. Imagine that process. You're translating 00:27:44.589 --> 00:27:47.289 your wife's words, but first you have to transcribe 00:27:47.289 --> 00:27:49.789 them as she speaks them, creating the book together 00:27:49.789 --> 00:27:52.730 in real time. It's incredibly intimate. It required 00:27:52.730 --> 00:27:56.049 a total synchronization of minds. Richard had 00:27:56.049 --> 00:27:58.509 translated her for 40 years. He knew her voice 00:27:58.509 --> 00:28:00.829 almost as well as she did. And the literary world 00:28:00.829 --> 00:28:03.569 took notice. They did. They became the first 00:28:03.569 --> 00:28:06.190 wife and husband author -translator team to be 00:28:06.190 --> 00:28:08.369 shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. 00:28:08.609 --> 00:28:10.630 And she was 86 years old when she was longlisted. 00:28:11.259 --> 00:28:13.700 The oldest writer ever long listed. It just shows 00:28:13.700 --> 00:28:16.059 that her mind was sharp. Her creativity was completely 00:28:16.059 --> 00:28:19.119 undimmed, even as her body was failing. The book 00:28:19.119 --> 00:28:21.880 itself is this fable about a mixed race child 00:28:21.880 --> 00:28:24.420 who might be the son of God. It's full of humor 00:28:24.420 --> 00:28:27.140 and magic. It wasn't a sad final book. It was 00:28:27.140 --> 00:28:29.700 playful. Still experimenting right up to the 00:28:29.700 --> 00:28:32.319 end. Exactly. And sadly, the journey did end. 00:28:32.400 --> 00:28:35.980 She passed away on April 2, 2024, in Abt, France. 00:28:36.319 --> 00:28:39.160 Leaving behind a body of work that is truly staggering. 00:28:39.519 --> 00:28:41.450 Novels, plays, essays. essays, children's books, 00:28:41.529 --> 00:28:44.150 a whole library of human experience. So as we 00:28:44.150 --> 00:28:46.069 wrap this up, I want to try and synthesize this. 00:28:46.730 --> 00:28:49.470 How do we summarize the impact of Mary's Condé? 00:28:49.650 --> 00:28:51.730 I think she was a grand storyteller of world 00:28:51.730 --> 00:28:54.410 literature. That's the key phrase. She took the 00:28:54.410 --> 00:28:56.529 specific experience of the Caribbean, that feeling 00:28:56.529 --> 00:28:58.589 of being torn between Africa, Europe, and the 00:28:58.589 --> 00:29:01.309 Americas, and she turned it into something universal. 00:29:01.829 --> 00:29:05.309 She navigated the post -colonial chaos, not by 00:29:05.309 --> 00:29:07.609 trying to tidy it up, but by diving right into 00:29:07.609 --> 00:29:09.769 it. And she never gave us easy answers. Never. 00:29:10.190 --> 00:29:11.990 And that brings me to my favorite provocation 00:29:11.990 --> 00:29:14.289 from her life. She wrote an autobiography called 00:29:14.289 --> 00:29:17.269 What is Africa to Me? And even after all those 00:29:17.269 --> 00:29:19.190 years living there, even after writing Segu, 00:29:19.329 --> 00:29:22.230 even after all that reflection, she admitted 00:29:22.230 --> 00:29:23.990 that by the end of the book, she still didn't 00:29:23.990 --> 00:29:26.829 know what Africa meant to her. That is brave, 00:29:27.049 --> 00:29:29.950 to spend your whole life asking a question and 00:29:29.950 --> 00:29:32.549 then admit, I still don't have the answer. In 00:29:32.549 --> 00:29:34.789 a world that demands clear definitions, you are 00:29:34.789 --> 00:29:36.910 this, you are that, this is your narrative, arc, 00:29:37.069 --> 00:29:40.710 Conde said. I don't know. She embraced the ambiguity. 00:29:40.769 --> 00:29:43.910 She embraced the mess. She told us that identity 00:29:43.910 --> 00:29:46.650 isn't a fixed point. It's a journey that never 00:29:46.650 --> 00:29:49.529 really ends. And maybe that's the big takeaway 00:29:49.529 --> 00:29:52.970 for you, the listener, today. We're all under 00:29:52.970 --> 00:29:54.809 so much pressure to define ourselves, to have 00:29:54.809 --> 00:29:58.180 a brand or a clear identity. But Mary's Condé 00:29:58.180 --> 00:30:00.859 proved that you could live a life full of contradictions. 00:30:01.039 --> 00:30:03.880 You can be a spoiled child and a radical. You 00:30:03.880 --> 00:30:06.299 can be a mother and an intellectual. You can 00:30:06.299 --> 00:30:08.839 be an outsider everywhere you go. And you can 00:30:08.839 --> 00:30:11.019 still create something magnificent. You can simply 00:30:11.019 --> 00:30:13.200 write in your own language, on your own terms. 00:30:13.400 --> 00:30:15.759 I write in Mary's Condé. What a legacy. Indeed. 00:30:16.039 --> 00:30:18.500 A singular voice that will be missed but never 00:30:18.500 --> 00:30:21.720 forgotten. Thank you all for listening to this 00:30:21.720 --> 00:30:24.000 deep dive. If you haven't read her, go pick up 00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:27.119 Sagu or I, Tituba. It's not just homework, it's 00:30:27.119 --> 00:30:29.059 an adventure. We'll see you next time.