Signs of Dissent: Maryse Condé and Postcolonial Criticism (review)

In the past few years, there has been an enormous surge in literary criticism on Maryse Condé. Condé's stark refusal to assume rigid categories of identity, such as female, postcolonial and black/African writer, has made the study of her work a fruitful point of departure for discussions about the major theoretical discourses and historical debates with which she engages: Negritude, the Black Atlantic Slave trade, African dictatorships, feminism, and religion. Never content to simply assume an assigned place in a hierarchy and produce texts that subvert authority, Condé's work constantly critiques, using parody and satire to undermine commonplace modes of thinking—on the part of European, African, and Caribbean authors—in a sophisticated fashion that underscores the problematic nature of asserting any form of collective identity.

Dawn Fulton's Signs of Dissent: Maryse Condé and Postcolonial Criticism sets itself apart from much of the recently published criticism on Condé, in that she continually highlights the parodic elements of Condé's work, shifting through the multifaceted layers of meaning, and never blindly falling into the numerous traps that Condé intentionally sets for critics. Her book provides a comprehensive overview of Condé's work, from her earliest, neglected scholarly essays to her provocative ruminations on cannibalism in the Histoire d'une femme cannibale (2005). In engaging with such a prolific writer, Fulton carefully takes notes of the diverse themes, approaches, and styles present in her work, all the while signaling recurrent trends and patterns, such as her critiques of Negritude or play with autobiographical pacts.

In the "Introduction: Critical Incorporations," Fulton gives an overview of Condé's life and work, emphasizing its reception and engagement with critical discourses. According to Fulton, Condé's approach is best characterized as one of extreme skepticism, regarding everything from "the tendency to construct generalized categories of oppression" to "theories of globalization and transnationalism" to the "much-maligned term postcolonial" (6). Fulton writes that the primary dilemma faced by Condé and addressed in her writing is the desire to be read outside of the hierarchical discourses and politics of identification that attempt to define her as a writer and impose labels she vehemently rejects, such as "feminist," "postcolonial," or "subversive."

In chapter 1, "After Essentialism: Language, Representativity, Political Action," Fulton examines Condé's early work, including her scholarly essays on literature and her first two novels, the relatively well-known Heremakhonon (1976, renamed En Attendant le Bonheur and reprinted in 1988) and the lesser-known Une saison à Rihata (1981). In particular, Fulton stresses Condé's ongoing critique of essentialism, whether in politics or literature, and her exploration of literature as a means of provoking reflection on this topic, especially with regard to clichés of identity. She also successfully debunks the common unstated assumption that the presence of autobiographical elements precludes the inclusion of caricature.

In chapter 2, "Fixing Tituba: Imitations of the Marginal," Fulton undertakes a detailed analysis of Condé's most widely read novel (at least in a pedagogical context): Moi, Tituba sorcière … noire de Salem (1986). Fulton's reading of Tituba undoubtedly marks the high point of her study, as she carefully illustrates in this chapter the mechanisms by which Condé uses the character of Tituba to parody and subvert modes of novelistic interpretation. As Fulton convincingly shows, Condé uses the narrator Tituba, a female slave and presumably a "Third World heroine," to lay a trap for critics who read her story in terms of identity categories, while ignoring the satirical elements. Fulton points out that the undertones of the story line indicate that Condé is just as critical of Tituba, in many ways an intentionally stereotyped character who believes false myths, as she is of the rigid Puritan order that seeks to impose the label of sorcière on her—a label which ultimately leads to her hanging. As Fulton argues, "the reluctance to understand [Tituba] outside of a functional status as a black female voice … exposes the extent to which transparency demands singularity and closes off...