III. The African Myth.

This quest to find one's identity is the driving force that leads Condé's stories. In Condé's early novels ( Heremakhonon 1976, Segu 1984), her characters often go to Africa to discover their roots, thus stepping in a famous Caribbean writer's footsteps, Aimé Césaire, who advised his fellow countrymen to return to Africa in the fifties and sixties. Nevertheless, having lived in Africa herself, Condé, just like her characters, realizes quickly that Africa is not her motherland in spite of her ancestors' African origins.

In a later novel, The Last of the African Kings (1992), Condé goes as far as mocking the quest for African ancestors and the myth that surrounds it; the myth being that some in the Caribbean believe their ancestors to be African Kings and Queens . Condé understands that this desire to find noble African origins has to stop in order to re-build and understand the true Caribbean or Creole identity. This quest is also the focus of many works by Caribbean writers whether from English, Spanish or French islands.

LINK: Césaire

LINK: Evolution of Condé's relationship with Africa