Segu

Condé’s story is rich and colorful and glorious. It sprawls over continents and centuries to find its way into the reader’s heart – Maya Angelou
A stunning reaffirmation of Africa and its peoples… It’s a starburst – John A. Williams
The grand queen, the empress, of Caribbean literature – Fiammetta Rocco * Guardian *
Maryse Condé is an extraordinary storyteller who brings the history of an African kingdom alive as vividly as if it existed today. Suspenseful, shocking, panoramic and hugely engrossing, the novel explores the politics and impact of external and domestic forces on nineteenth century west Africa through wonderfully realised characters and their complicated relationships. This is a great novel: unputdownable and unforgettable – Bernardine Evaristo
If there were no tools on a desert island, I would take Segu by Maryse Condé. This generational family saga has so many layers that I can read and reread it, in between figuring out how to build a raft – Chibundu Onuzo * Time Out *
Richly textured and detailed, this narrative, alternating between the lives of various characters, illuminates magnificently a little known historical period. Virtually every page glitters with nuggets of cultural fascination – Howard Kaplan * Los Angeles Times *
A wondrous novel about a period of African history few other writers have addressed – Charles L. Larson * New York Times Book Review *

Maryse Conde was born at Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe, in 1937 and spent most of her life in West Africa (Guinea, Ghana and Senegal), France and the US, where she taught at the University of California, Berkeley, UCLA and Columbia. The publication of her bestselling third novel, Segu (1984), established her pre-eminent position among Caribbean writers. She won Le Grand Prix Litteraire de la Femme in 1986 as well as Le Prix de L’Academie Francaise in 1988 and was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2015.

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