How does one introduce Maryse Condé to the uninitiated reader? Condé's centrality to Francophone studies and her popularity outside academic circles make this question more than merely rhetorical. Indeed, her fame has spread beyond the academic circle of scholars and students in Francophone studies – far beyond, in fact. English, German, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish translations of her work testify to her growing global audience. Her oeuvre has earned her a number of accolades that reflect her widespread appeal: the French government named her Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2001 and Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in 2004; the Québec government made her an honorary member of the Académie des Lettres du Québec in 1998; and Guadeloupeans acknowledged her importance in a four-day conference on her work in Pointe-à-Pitre in March 1995. In spite of her widespread popularity, however, her creative work has been analysed in a largely fragmented fashion, and her critical work is little known within postcolonial studies in the English-speaking world.

Maryse Condé, née Boucolon, was born in Guadeloupe in 1937, before the island's status changed (nominally) from that of colony to that of Département d'Outre Mer in 1946. She grew up in Guadeloupe until her parents sent her to pursue her studies in France at the age of 16. After receiving her BA in English and Classical Literatures from the Sorbonne in Paris, she married African actor Mamadou Condé in 1959.