Creolism, myths and realities
In the 1970s, the emergence of French-language novels from the French West Indies led to the emergence of a number of famous names: Maryse Condé, Ernest Pépin, Gisèle Pineau... Each, in his or her own way, describes the myths and realities of the archipelago. All were noticed and published in France. With this in mind, Ibis Rouge, an island publishing company set up in 1995, first in French Guiana, then in Guadeloupe, Martinique and Reunion, aims to provide these authors with the same professional support on the island as in France. Specializing in themes relating to the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean, the independent structure boasts an impressive catalog.
Discover the greatest Guadeloupean writers
Let's start with Maryse Condé, who died on April 2, 2024 at the age of 90. This teacher, journalist and novelist was born in 1937. After living in Guadeloupe, Africa and France, she settled in the United States, where she taught at Columbia University and worked for the BBC. The author of several award-winning novels, her best-known include Le cœur à rire et à pleurer (1999), recounting her childhood, Traversée de la Mangrove (1989), Ségou (2 volumes, 1984-1985), Moi, Tituba sorcière (1986), Desirada (1997), Célanire cou-coupé (2000), and Histoire de la femme cannibale (2005). An autobiography, La vie sans fards, was published in September 2012, and Mets et merveilles followed in 2015. She was also president of the Comité pour la mémoire de l'esclavage. At her suggestion, former President Jacques Chirac created the Journée de la commémoration des mémoires de la traite négrière, de l'esclavage et de leurs abolitions, set for May 10 and celebrated for the first time in 2006. In this capacity, Maryse Condé contributed, as a teacher, to the book published in 2013: Exposer l'esclavage, méthodologies et pratiques. In 2015, Maryse Condé announced Mets et merveilles as her last book. But, probably inspired by current events, the novelist imagined the journey of a young radicalized Guadeloupean in Le Fabuleux et triste destin d'Yvan et Yvanna, published in 2017. On October 12, 2018, Maryse Condé was awarded the alternative Nobel Prize for Literature, a great accolade for the writer. In 2021, she published L'Évangile du nouveau monde, a kind of New Testament transported to Guadeloupe. Kaz a Condé, a place for exchange and reflection, was inaugurated in 2023 at the Pavillon de la Ville in Pointe-à-Pitre. In September 2024, the airport was renamed Guadeloupe-Maryse Condé Airport, in tribute to the writer.
Alexis Leger, also known as Saint-John Perse. This French writer and diplomat, born in Pointe-à-Pitre in 1887, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1960 for his body of work. His main collections, Éloges (1907), Exil (1942) and Oiseaux (1962), evoke the happy years spent in Guadeloupean nature. His complete works were published in 1972. A beautiful colonial house in the center of Pointe-à-Pitre, which bears his name, has become a museum dedicated to history and literature. Many of the exhibits (including photographs and manuscripts) and literary documentation are dedicated to the poet. As for his birthplace, it was sadly destroyed in 2017.
It's impossible to miss André and Simone Schwarz-Bart, whose house can be visited during the Heritage Days in September. André Schwarz-Bart (1928-2006) was born in Moselle in 1928. His life changed dramatically during the Second World War, when his parents were sent to a camp by the Nazis in 1942. He joined the Resistance and took four years to publish his novel Le Dernier des Justes, for which he won the Prix Goncourt in 1959. The novel follows the life of a persecuted Jewish family from the time of the Crusades to the Holocaust. In 1961, he married Guadeloupean student Simone Brumant (b. 1938), with whom he went on to co-write Un plat de porc aux bananes vertes and Mulâtresse Solitude. They are the parents of jazz saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart. Although Mulâtresse Solitude, a young free slave, really did exist, a veritable legend has grown up around her character, thanks in particular to André Schwarz-Bart. His book retraces part of the story of this young martyr, although on reading it becomes clear that the facts do not coincide with the true chronology. What we know about Mulâtresse Solitude: She was born in 1772, to a sailor who raped her mother on the boat taking her to Guadeloupe. Her mother ran away from the plantation where she was assigned with her daughter. As a teenager, the latter joined the fight of Louis Delgrès and Ignace when France re-established slavery in 1802, having abolished it in 1794. Pregnant, she was sentenced to death and executed the day after giving birth, on November 29, 1802. In 1999, a statue of Jacky Poulier was erected in her memory at the Lacroix crossroads on the Boulevard des Héros in Les Abymes.
Then there's Ernest Pépin, a poet, novelist and literary critic born in 1950. This former French teacher, whose life was marked by his encounter with Cheikh Anta Diop in 1983, has won numerous awards for his novels, short stories, children's books and collections of poetry. His first novel, L'Homme au bâton, published in 1992, made him a household name. His novels, Le Tango de la haine (1999), Cantique des tourterelles (2004), L'Envers du décor (2006) and Toxic Island (2010), and essays such as Lettre ouverte à la jeunesse (2001) demonstrate his social concerns, as well as his keen insight into the profound identity of the Guadeloupean soul. The initiator of a literary salon (Mai du livre), Ernest Pépin is a highly respected intellectual figure. On his birthday, September 25, 2007, Ernest Pépin was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor. His latest novel, Le Griot de la peinture, inspired by the life of painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, was published in 2015.
Gisèle Pineau, meanwhile, is a nurse who has taken up writing. Born in Paris in 1956 to parents originally from Guadeloupe, she studied in the capital until 1979, when she returned to Basse-Terre to work at the Saint-Claude psychiatric hospital. This experience gave her the opportunity to probe the ills of West Indian society. In her books, women are often at the center of her writing. In 1998, she edited the collective work Les Femmes des Antilles, traces et voix, 50 ans après l'abolition de l'esclavage. In 1994, La grande drive des esprits won the Elle magazine prize, Fleur de barbarie won the Rosine Perrier prize (2005), and Folie, aller simple : Journée ordinaire d'une infirmière won the Prix Carbet des lycéens (2011). The novels Chair Piment (2005), Morne Câpresse (2008) and Cent vies et des poussières (2012) evoke the realistic, often violent journeys of Guadeloupean women. In 2015, she published her 20th novel, Les Voyages de Merry Sisal, the story of a young Haitian woman after the 2010 earthquake. Le Parfum des sirènes will be published in 2018 and Ady, soleil noir in 2020.
Guy Tirolien was born in Pointe-à-Pitre in 1917, the son of a school principal. At the age of eight, he moved to Marie-Galante, the island from which his parents came, and to which he remained deeply attached throughout his life. A career colonial administrator, he published his major work, Prières d'un petit enfant nègre (Prayers of a Little Negro Child) in 1943, and in 1947 helped found the magazine Présence Africaine alongside Léopold Sédar Senghor and Aimé Césaire. The poet was also involved in the Négritude literary movement. In 1961, he published his first collection of poems, Balles d'Or. He died at the age of 71, in 1988, on his beloved island.
Daniel Maximin. Born in Guadeloupe in 1945, Daniel Maximin is a novelist, poet and essayist. In 1960, his entire family moved to Paris. He studied literature and humanities at the Sorbonne. It was at the Présence Africaine bookshop (nicknamed La Sorbonne noire and the place where young people came to discover the fathers of decolonization in the 60s) that he became friends with Aimé Césaire, among others. He became a literature professor, then a lecturer at the Institut d'Études Sociales, all the while writing. Between 1980 and 1989, he was literary director at Éditions Présence Africaine and producer of the "Antipodes" program on France-Culture. Between 1989 and 1997, he moved to Guadeloupe as Regional Director of Cultural Affairs. He returned to France in 1998 to organize the national celebration of the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery. Two years later, he was appointed Advisor to the Mission for Arts and Culture at the French Ministry of Education. In 2006, he became responsible for literature and education at the Francofffonies festival. In 2011, he was General Curator of L'année des outre-mer, then General Curator of the exhibition Aimé Césaire, Lam, Picasso: "nous nous sommes trouvés", at the Grand Palais in Paris. Since 2013, he has been a member of the Observatoire de laïcité, a French advisory commission tasked with advising and assisting the government on respect for and promotion of the principle of secularism. In addition to all these functions, he has written a number of successful books. His trilogy of novels includes L'Isolé soleil (1981), Soufrières (1987) and L'Île et une nuit (1996). In the first, he evokes the tormented history of the islands over five generations, and paints the result of the colonial and slavery enterprise. He has also published poetry collections such as L'Invention des désirades (2000). His book Aimé Césaire, frère volcan, published by Editions du Seuil, is a fine tribute to the great poet Also worth mentioning is his photography book Antilles: Secrètes et insolites (2011), in which he shares his love of the Antilles, highlighting all its beauty! Sonny Rupaire has been awarded a number of prizes: Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (1993), Chevalier des Arts et Lettres (1995), Officier des Arts et Lettres (2010), Officier de la Légion d'honneur (2013), and in 2017 he received the Grand Prix Hervé Deluen, a francophonie prize created in 2007 and awarded by the Académie française to French-speaking foreign writers or researchers in French literature.
Sonny Rupaire. Born in 1940 during the Second World War, Sonny Rupaire became a militant of the nationalist cause, expressing his convictions through his poetry, which became his weapon of protest. He was one of the first to use the Creole language in literature. While still a student, he attracted attention for his poem on slavery and colonization, "Les Dameurs". A schoolteacher in Saint-Claude in 1961, he refused to join the French troops during the Algerian war. Convicted of insubordination in 1963, he left to support the Algerian National Liberation Army. He returned to Guadeloupe clandestinely in 1969 and was amnestied by the government in 1971. He was reinstated in the French education system in 1973. Now an active trade unionist and militant, he decided to write in Creole. He published his bilingual collection of poems, Cette igname brisée qu'est ma terre natale(Gran parade ti cou-baton). He died in 1991.
