Sylvie KANDE
    An author from France and Senegal
    writing in French
    [Return to French — Page originale en français]

    Born in Paris to a French mother and a Senegalese father, Sylvie Kandé studied the image of Black people in ancient Greek art and literature as a topic for her Masters in Classics at the Sorbonne. She was awarded a Ph.D in African History from Paris VII for her dissertation on the repatriation of Black people to Sierra Leone and the resulting Creole culture that developed in Freetown. The work is published under the title Terres, urbanisme et architecture 'créoles' en Sierra Leone, 18ème-19ème siècles (L'Harmattan, 1998). In 1987, she established herself in the United States. She was the editor of the proceedings of a colloquium held at NYU in 1997 on métissage (mixed racial identity) in the Francophone context. The book - also published by L'Harmattan in 1999 - is entitled Discours sur le métissage, identités métisses. En quête d'Ariel. Her book of poetic prose Lagon, lagunes was published by Gallimard in January 2000 and has been compared to Eliot's Wasteland. She translated Heart of Spain - Photos of the Spanish Civil War by Robert Capa (Aperture, 2000) into French, and co-translated Alexis Wright's collection of short stories (an Australian Aboriginal writer), published by Actes Sud under the title Le Pacte du serpent arc-en-Ciel (2002). Her short stories and poems have been published in France in La Nouvelle Revue Française, as well as in Africa, (Stephen Gray, editor, The Picador Book of African Short Stories, 2000) and the United States (Callaloo.) In May 1999, she was invited by the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Washington D.C. to read from her fiction and poetry; in December 2001 by the Columbia University Center for Research in African American Studies; in April 2002 by the New York Teachers and Writers Collective; and in April 2004 by the Blind Beggar Press. She has published numerous papers in scholarly journals on African, African-American and Caribbean Literature and Cinema (Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literatures, Research in African Literatures, Revue Francophone de Louisiane, QBR, le Soleil, Sociétés africaines et Diaspora, Mots Pluriels, Africultures, etc.) She taught African Studies in the Africana program, and Francophone African and Caribbean literatures in the French department at NYU for six years. She also was a research assistant at the NY Metropolitan Museum in the African arts division. She is currently (2004) teaching African studies at SUNY Old Westbury, as well as Caribbean history at the New School. She is a member of the PEN American Center, in the subcommittee Prison Writing.

    Fiction:

    Lagon, Lagunes. Paris: Gallimard, 2000 (80p.) ISBN 2-07-075758-7. (Postface by Edouard Glissant).

    Lagon, lagunes, with a postface written by Edouard Glissant, evokes the itinerary of a wandering and rebellious "I", exiled from the shores of conventional identities. Following temporal and spatial clues, "I" attempts to reconstitute from memory traces left by her métisse experience on three continents - Africa, Europe and America. Written in a poetic prose that incorporates a wide range of language variations, Lagon, lagunes comes across as a mosaic of portraits, literary remiscences, signs and anecdotes. It is also a tribute to the African and Greek mythologies of the moon. (From the novel back cover)

    Links:

    - http://www.archivesdusenegal.sn/indexaut1.html
    - http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/depts/langlit/french/bottink.html

    Interviews:

    - Mongo-Mboussa, Boniface "Entretien avec Sylvie Kandé" Africultures 28- Mai 2000, p 96-98
    - "Sylvie Kandé" La langue française vue d'ailleurs- 100 entretiens réalisés par P. Martin et C. Drevet. Casablanca : Tarik eds, 2001, p 131-133 http://www.medi1.com/infos/sommaire.php.

    Reviews of Lagon, lagunes:

    - Abomo Maurin, Marie Rose "Sylvie Kandé Lagon, lagunes" Notre Librairie 142, oct-dec 2000
    - Bah Diallo, Assiatou " 'Lagon, lagunes' de Sylvie Kandé", Amina 363 (2000), p 34, A1.
    - Bedarida, Catherine "Explorations du continent noir" Le Monde des livres, 21 avril 2000
    - Bouquet, Stephane "Réamorcer la pompe Afrique" Libération, 2 mars 2000
    - Cingal, Guillaume "Kandé, Sylvie. Lagon, lagunes" Etudes Littéraires Africaines, 10, p 24-25 http://www.e-litterature.net
    - Loupias, Bernard "Vent d'Afrique" Le Nouvel Observateur, 1858, semaine du 15 juin 2000.
    - Mfaboum Mbiafu, EdmondĘPrésence Africaine, 163-164, 2001, p 236-237
    - Mesh, Cyntia J. "Kandé, Sylvie. Lagon, lagunes" French Review, 75.6, May 2002, p 1315-1316 http://www.montana.edu/wwwaatf/french_review/archive/may02.html
    - Riva, Silvia " 'Le mouvement qui déplace les lignes' Afriques têtues, Caraibes envoilées, Europes mythiques in Lagon, lagunes di Sylvie Kandé" in E.Galazzi-G. Bernardelli (a cura di) Lingua, cultura e testo. Miscellanea di studi francesi in onore di sergio Cigada, Milano, Vita & Pensiero, 2003, vol II, t II, pp 1073-1086
    - Entretien avec Jean-Noel Schifano "La latérite unit les écritures africaines" Africultures http://www.africultures.com/index.asp?menu=revue-affiche-article&no=1352
    - Zabus, Chantal "Sylvie Kandé. Lagon, lagunes. Tableau de mémoire." World Literature Today, 75:1-Winter 2001, p 138
    - http://www.firstciv.com/firstcivilizationsdiscussion/slpsusp/00000053.html
    - http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc0.asp?DOCID=1G1:71565347
    - http://www.mapage.noos.fr/magwolf/poesie-tm/Kande-txt-html
    - http://www.bronxarts.org.newsletter/200403html
    - http://www.obhelyquenum.com/musique_oeuvre_obq.html

    Reviews of Discours sur le métissage, identités métisses. En quête d'Ariel:

    - http://www.revel.unice.fr/anthopo/document.html
    - Fonkoua, Romuald "Discours sur le métissage, identités métisses. En quête d'Ariel" Etudes Littéraires Africaines, 8, p 30-33
    - Mongo-Mboussa, Boniface "Discours sur le métissage, identités métisses. En quête d'Ariel" Africultures, 20, sept 1999, p 105-106
    - Prieto, Eric "Kandé Sylvie. Discours sur le métissage, identités métisses. En quête d'Ariel" Substance 93, 2000, p 138-142 http://www.french-ital.ucsb.edu/substance/93.html
    - Reeck, Laura "Discours sur le métissage, identités métisses. En quête d'Ariel." Notre Librairie, 138-139, sept. 99-mars 2000, p 148-149

    Reviews of Terres, urbanisme et architecture 'créoles' en Sierra Leone, 18ème-19ème siècles:

    - Bénot, Yves "Sylvie Kandé. Terres, urbanisme et architecture 'créoles' en Sierra Leone, 18ème-19ème siècles", Dix-huitième siècle, 32, 2000
    - Colin, Roland "Kandé, Sylvie. Terres, urbanisme et architecture 'créoles' en Sierra Leone, 18ème-19ème siècles", Cahier d'Etudes Africaines, XL,157, 2000, p 165-166
    - Faye, Modou Mamoune "Sylvie Kandé. Terres, urbanisme et architecture 'créoles' en Sierra Leone, 18ème-19ème siècles de Sylvie Kandé" Le Soleil, 29 avril 1999
    - Mark, Peter "Sylvie Kandé. Terres, urbanisme et architecture 'créoles' en Sierra Leone, 18ème-19ème siècles" African Studies Review, 42, 3, dec 1999, p 264-266

    Other works by Sylvie Kandé:

    - http://www.chronicleworld.org/archive.w.html
    - http://www.qbr.com/reviews/Haiku02.html
    - "Jazz et littérature francophone" » Mots pluriels 13, April 2000 http://www.arts.uwa.edu.au.MotsPluriels/MP1300.syk.html
    - http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~scctr/Wellek/gilroy/K.html
    - http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/D.Dogon.asp
    - http://www.iupressjournals.indiana.edu/ral/al314.acgi
    - (editorial) "Un automne à New York" & "Quant au Bronx... " on 'Urban Mythologies', an exhibit at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Africultures 44 (janvier 2002) : 5-9 & 64-66 http://www.africultures.com
    - "La Diaspora africaine d'Amérique latine à l'écran" Africultures 21, 2004 http://www.africultures.com/index.asp?menu=affiche-article&no=3428
    - http://books.cambridge.org/catalogue_toc.asp?isbn=0521594340"
    - http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/ow/48ceec17259de8cda19afeb4da09e526.html
    - http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~scctr/Wellek/bhabha/K.html
    - http://etudesafricaines.revues.org/sommaire3.html

    Credits:

    - http://www.metmuseum.or/toah/intro/atr/credits.html

    Envoyer un message à Sylvie Kandé

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    Editor (jvolet@cyllene.uwa.edu.au)
    The University of Western Australia/French
    Created: 4 July 2000
    Updated: 26 October 2004
    http://www.arts.uwa.edu.au/AFLIT/KandeSylvieeng.html