‘An extraordinary role model’: Maryse Condé remembered by Leïla Slimani

The writer and journalist recalls Condé’s heartbreakingly beautiful language, incredibly honest books and generous friendship

Life is sometimes like a mediocre novel: full of coincidences. 2 April 2024 marked 20 years since my father died, and on that same day I learned that Maryse Condé had died, too.

Condé wasn’t exactly family, and yet I felt closer to her than to many people who have crossed my path. Before even meeting her – a dream I was able to fulfil a few years ago – I felt I knew her intimately. It is the fate of writers to be known by their readers almost in spite of themselves. I have lived with Condé and with her characters for many long, solitary hours and at different ages of my life. I have read so much by her that her language has become as familiar to me as my mother’s and her obsessions so blurred with mine that I have adopted the Caribbean landscape and discovered and loved the scent of flowers I’ve never seen.