Griot with Attitude: Maryse Condé's The Last of the African Kings and New World Narrative Order

This essay examines Maryse Condé's novel The Last of the African Kings in relation to the African griot tradition. The essay approaches the novel from an oral-arts aesthetic perspective, examining the ways Condé deploys the voice of the African griot, a traditional raconteur and chronicler of history, in the exploration of African diaspora sensibility. Although the narrative scheme of the novel seems to convey the author's keen familiarity with the sense of authority and significance with which the oral artist performs epic or other narratives, the essay argues that in the "brave New World" of African diasporic narration, a postmodernist, decentered narration replaces the unified and conservative voice of the traditional griot.