Reading Group on Le Cœur à rire et à pleurer by Maryse Condé

This reading group is dedicated to Le Cœur à rire et à pleurer (Tales from the Heart), intimate, formative stories from the childhood of the legendary Caribbean writer, Maryse Condé who was awarded with the alternative Nobel prize for literature in 2018.

The author takes us to Guadeloupe, a Caribbean island where she grew up in the Forties in a large family between a distant father and a mother with very high expectations. Being the last child of the family, she felt lonely and neglected and found solace in the kitchen with the house cook. This context strongly influenced her wish to emancipate from her roots before embracing them again once adult.