Une autobiographie intellectuelle de Maryse Condé : vivre et écrire

Authors

Josias Semujanga, Université de Montréal

Abstract

In this study of autobiography by French-speaking writers, we propose to construct a syntax for the genre, after recalling the great difficulty of tackling such a vast subject for so long. From then on, any study of autobiography implies confronting it with other related forms, such as essays, memoirs, autofiction, testimonies or diaries, all characterised by the assumed subjectivity of the “I” narrator, who recounts a life journey as well as a personal reflection on world events. The general idea defended here is that the grammar of intellectual autobiography presents itself as a narrative posture that needs to be thought beyond the simple structuralist definition on which research has long focused. It shows that what is important is not so much that the narrative is structurally told in the first person “I/we”, but rather that, at the level of enunciation, the study argues that the autobiographer both reflects on the literary procedures of this genre and takes an ethical look at societal issues, like other free genres such as essays, memoirs or testimonies. These reflections are based mainly on Maryse Condé’s La vie sans fards, and occasionally on other French-language texts, in order to highlight the themes and enunciative postures most frequently addressed by many thinkers of literature as a mediator of ideas constructing the values that make the world intelligible.

Recommended Citation

Semujanga, Josias (2024) "Une autobiographie intellectuelle de Maryse Condé : vivre et écrire," Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature: Vol. 101: No. 1, Article 10.
Available at: https://crossworks.holycross.edu/pf/vol101/iss1/10