Rosélie Thibaudin et l’expérience picturale dans Histoire de la femme cannibale de Maryse Condé

Authors

Kanaté Dahouda, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Abstract

Maryse Condé is a renowned French Caribbean writer from Guadeloupe. She is the author of numerous novels, including The Story of the Cannibal Woman. This novel follows the life of Rosélie Thibaudin and portrays her obsession with being part of the gallery of famous artists like Modigliani, Wifredo Lam and Roberto Matta. As she strives to fulfill her quest for artistic recognition and freedom, Roselie faces social constraints that shape the nature of her relationships with her family and Stephen, as well as with her colleagues and students at the academy of the arts called La América. Through the difficult of this female painter character, Maryse Condé displays the fragmented story of uprooted subjects and mixed couples living in South African society confronted with the trauma of Apartheid, between prejudice and racism, censorship, violence, and poverty. This article analyzes ways in which these fundamental issues are converted into painful life experiences through the artistic practice of Rosélie Thibaudin, which Maryse Condé uses as an aesthetic and ideological means to deconstruct the myth of a reconciled and post-racial South Africa.

Recommended Citation

Dahouda, Kanaté (2021) "Rosélie Thibaudin et l’expérience picturale dans Histoire de la femme cannibale de Maryse Condé," Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature: Vol. 96: No. 1, Article 18.
Available at: https://crossworks.holycross.edu/pf/vol96/iss1/18