'Of Morsels and Marvels'; Book Excerpt By Maryse Conde

Neither Richard nor I were particularly pleased to be back in Paris. As usual, Paris looked down at me, cold and aloof, and treated me like a stranger. Nevertheless, certain places retained their magic. We went for dinner to Brasserie Bofinger where we used to be frequent customers.

I liked the place, the gold and the gilt, the elegance of the waiters and the solemn way they shouldered the dishes as if they were priests handing out the sacrament. What saddened me was having to ask for a table downstairs for I could no longer climb to the floor above. It was a premonition of what I was to become. Fortunately, our neighbours were a friendly couple of Americans seated in front of an enormous seafood platter. They talked to us about Paris with that passion only Americans feel for France. For Americans, France is not a colonial power and my friends have never understood my claims for independence. They cannot understand that the French language which I speak so well can be considered an imposition. In short, in their eyes, I should be extremely proud to be an adoptive daughter.

In December, we flew back to New York. I  was free to do as I please since I had retired from teaching at Columbia. I hadn’t even kept my office hours for that would mean climbing up 116th Street twice a week to the university. With the help of Richard, I would only go on campus for a lecture or a conference.

That’s how I got to listen to Claude Lanzmann, Alice Kaplan, Edwidge Danticat and especially a dear friend of mine whom I hadn’t seen for years, Aminata Sow Fall from Senegal. Seeing her immediately brought back all my younger years when I had only just written Heremakhonon and I was a lecturer at Nanterre University. Lilyan Kesteloot had insisted I attend a conference at the university in Dakar. I was on my own. At that time, in order to break up the routine of marriage, Richard and I didn’t hesitate to go our separate ways for a few days, even a week. I was not used to being in the company of intellectual women from Africa and was envious of Mme Ki-Zerbo, Angélique Savané and Fatou Gueye. I was especially struck by Aminata, dressed in an elegant embroidered boubou and an immense head dress. It was rumoured that her novel The Beggars’ Strike might be awarded the Prix Goncourt.

She laughed about it. ‘You must be joking!’ she protested. ‘If it were true, France would no longer be France.’

Despite our differences, we became friends. She invited me for dinner at her place. There were so many little girls and boys constantly coming up  to me for a kiss on their cheeks that I couldn’t help asking her how many children she had.

‘You shouldn’t ask,’ she replied with her characteristic blend of brusqueness and humour. ‘Children are God’s gift—you accept them, but you don’t count.’

The dinner served in the courtyard under the stars was magnificent. It consisted of a soupokandia, perhaps a little too rich, that I have never ventured to cook, comprising dried fish, yet (conch), seafood, smoked fish, meat and okra cooked in palm oil. It is garnished with rice and, since it is somewhat heavy, should be washed down abundantly with bissap,  the national drink of Senegal made from hibiscus flowers.

Years later I returned to Dakar for the promotion of Segu. As I have already said, the book was the subject of a web of intrigue in the African countries where I presented it. The watchword went out to writers to boycott my presentations. In Dakar, Sembene Ousmane and Aminata Sow Fall were the only ones who refused to submit to this diktat. ‘If they don’t like your book,’ Sembene said angrily, ‘let them come and say so and explain why.’

‘What are they blaming me for?’ I murmured in dismay.

‘For being a woman,’ Aminata uttered violently. ‘Well, we’ll show them what we’re capable of.’

She was the one who gave me the courage to defend myself.

Once her presentation was over, we all went up the first floor of La Maison Française at Columbia where American-style refreshments were being served: cheese cubes and white wine. But neither of us was interested in eating. We were satisfied discussing the memory of those years when we were capable of fighting everything and everyone.

Maryse Condé, the Guadeloupean “grand storyteller,” examined histories of empire, diasporaand womanhood in classics like Segu and I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem. She won the 2018 New Academy Prize in Literature and died in April 2024 at age 90.

Excerpted with permission from Seagull Books.