Maryse Condé
(1934- )
original name Maryse Boucolon
Victoire:
My Mother’s Mother
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Hardcover: 208 pages
Publisher: Atria (January 19, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1416592768
ISBN-13: 978-1416592761
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
The critically acclaimed, award-winning author of the classic historical
novel Segu, Maryse Condé has pieced together the life of her maternal
grandmother to create a moving and profound novel.
Maryse Condé's personal journey of discovery and revelation becomes ours as
we learn of Victoire, her white-skinned mestiza grandmother who worked as a
cook for the Walbergs, a family of white Creoles, in the French Antilles.
Using her formidable skills as a storyteller, Condé describes her
grandmother as having "Australian whiteness for the color of her skin...She
jarred with my world of women in Italian straw bonnets and men necktied in
three-piece linen suits, all of them a very black shade of black. She
appeared to me doubly strange."
Victoire was spurred by Condé's desire to learn of her family history,
resolving to begin her quest by researching the life of her grandmother.
While uncovering the circumstances of Victoire's unique life story, Condé
also comes to grips with a haunting question: How could her own mother, a
black militant, have been raised in the Walberg's home, a household of
whites?
Creating a work that takes readers into a time and place populated with
unforgettable characters that inspire and amaze, Condé's blending of memoir
and imagination, detective work and storytelling artistry, is a literary gem
that readers won't soon forget.
More Book by Maryse Condé
Related Links
Maryse Conde Biography
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/conde.htm
