Introduction

The trajectory of Maryse Conde's career points to the paradigmatically global status of Francophone or Third World authors whose works are read predominantly outside their country of origin. However the dominant cultural frame of this status varies according to whether Conde is viewed as a 'Francophone Caribbean' author. In both its varied generic identity and prolific nature, Conde's writing career is also distinctive. To date, Conde has produced numerous novels aimed at both adult and young readers, two memoirs, and a growing number of essays in French and English. A cross-generic focus is a productive context for reflecting on the implications of the continuities and the contradictions that inform representations of space and crossing both within Conde's self-presentation as an author and in thematic content of her work. Through her appeal to the freedom that she ascribes to literature, Conde also establishes thematically in her work a distance from the assumed political role of critical practice and of critics.