Relationality, Discontinuity, and (Hi)stories: The Errantry and Opacity of Maryse Condé’s Desirada

This article examines the ways in which Maryse Condé’s Desirada is rhizomatic both thematically and formally. It argues that by portraying a protagonist in a multinational quest within a polyphonic narrative, Condé’s text is reminiscent of Édouard Glissant’s theories of errantry, Relation, opacity and transparency, and root and rhizome. I posit that the novel takes shape in, as, and through extension as it examines the ways in which rhizomatic thinking enables the construction of multiple, converging histories. Moreover, I demonstrate that these histories are valid and meaningful not in spite of their divergences, ambiguities, silences, and inaccessibilities, but precisely because of them.