Françoise Ega and Maryse Condé in Caribbean Migrations, a Glissant’s Relation

Abstract

This article aims to comparatively analyze the connection expressed through writing between migrant voices in the texts of two Caribbean and French-speaking writers, Françoise Ega and Maryse Condé, who emigrated from the French overseas departments of Martinique and Guadeloupe, respectively, for different reasons. We will seek to articulate, identify, and interpret notions of world literature and Relation (developed by Glissant, 2021), considering that they are implemented and inscribed as marks in the authors' narratives. In Cartas a uma negra (2021), Ega establishes an imaginary dialogue (and overseas/beyond language) with another writer, the Brazilian Carolina Maria de Jesus, as a premise for her letters, published posthumously (1978). In Le coeur à rire et à pleurer (1999) and La vie sans fards (2012), Condé revisits her childhood in Guadeloupe and later her migrations and travels, particularly those that occurred during the 1960s, a turbulent period in her life and before to her first published novel, Hérémakhonon (1976). Both writers are subjects set adrift, whose writing maps their connections with other displaced subjects and finds refuge in the other's difference, attesting to a world-literature. Our work will be based on excerpts from the aforementioned works and on criticism and theoretical discussions from decolonial perspectives, primarily those of the Martinican essayist Édouard Glissant.