Biography
Simone Schwarz-Bart is an internationally-known writer in the company
of Guadeloupean novelists Maryse Condé and Myriam Warner-Vieyra.
Born in 1938 in the French West Indies, to a teacher and military man, Schwarz-Bart
studied in Pointe-á-Pitre, Paris and Dakar. Her four novels have
each achieved laudatory reviews in The New York Times Book Review,
The Sunday Times, Présence Africaine, Figaro Littéraire,
The French Review, Savacou, Nouvelle Revue Française,
The New Yorker, and many others, both in the United States and abroad.
As a collective, her oeuvre lucidly narrates the harsh realities Caribbean
women endure in the clutches of slavery and colonization. In 1989, publication
of her six-volume work, Homage à la Femme Noire (In Praise
of Women of Color), testifies to her lifelong commitment to unearthing the
unknown history and culture of black women of the diaspora. In her
lifetime, Schwarz-Bart has lived in France, Africa and Switzerland.
She currently resides in both Lausanne, France and Guadeloupe.
The Schwarz-Bart Partnership
When she was eighteen and a student in Paris, Simone met writer André Schwarz-Bart. They married in 1961 and, two years later, he won the Prix Goncourt for Le Dernier Des Justes (The Last of the Just). A Polish Jew, André Schwarz-Bart lost both of his parents during the Holocaust. His novel, The Last of the Just, charts the history of one Jewish family since the year 1000. Both deeply politically committed, the couple began a stunning creative collaboration which resulted in two first-class historical novels, Un Plat de Porc aux Bananes Vertes and La Mulâtresse Solitude (A Woman Named Solitude). In 1967, Simone Schwarz-Bart co-authored Un Plat de Porc aux Bananes Vertes with her husband. Well-received by critics, A Dish of Pork with Green Bananas (English translation) recounts a Martinican woman’s alienation from French society and her search for her lost Caribbean identity. Elderly and disabled, Mariotte spends her final days in a Paris asylum for the aged as she revisits her past.
In their second collaboration, the couple continue to revisit history
from the perspective of a woman of color. Reconstructing the events
of one slave woman’s existence in the late eighteenth century, La Mulâtresse
Solitude portrays Solitude’s disturbing encounters during colonial slavery
in Guadeloupe. Critics often attribute full authorship of this novel
to André Schwartz-Bart, so it is not always given equal credit to
Simone. In her essay on La Mulâtresse Solitude, Charlotte Bruner
acknowledges this "collaboration" (236) as she points to the work’s publication
history. In its publicity, Simone is mentioned as a collaborator who
is part of the couple’s shared purpose of "telling the history of Guadeloupe
in a cycle of novels of historic reconstruction." However, the Seuil
edition names only her husband. When it is translated into English
the year of its original publication, Simone finally attains credit as co-author.
Simone is further attributed credit in Herdeck’s Caribbean Writers: A
Bio-Bibliographic Critical Encyclopedia (1979). Mention of the
joint authorship of Solitude also appears in Le Dernier des Justes,
in the list of Andre Scwarz-Bart’s forthcoming works. The publisher
note reads "in collaboration with his wife, Simone, André Schwarz-Bart
has embarked on publication of a sequel in the form of a novel" (Bruner 238,
note 4; my translation). To date, no studies exist which consider the
Schwart-Bart partnership in depth.
Major Themes
In her later novels and one-act play, Ton Bon Capitaine, Schwarz-Bart
weaves the multiple locations and languages of her heritage as she constructs
a matrilineal narrative of Guadeloupean women’s identities. Publishing
widely beyond the two novels she and her husband composed together, her
first solo act, when it first appeared in 1972, enjoyed critical acclaim
and was later translated into twelve languages. The story of three
generations of Guadeloupean women, Pluie et Vent sur Telumée Miracle
(The Bridge of Beyond), is hailed by critics for its lyrical examination
of exile as it doubly impacts the lives of West Indian women. Her fourth
novel, Ti Jean L’Horizon, fuses magical realism with science fiction
in its depiction of a legendary Guadeloupean folk hero. As with all
of her fiction, her play,Ton Beau Capitain, dramatizes the unyielding trauma
of exile and the subtleties of patriarchal domination. Inspired by
her grandmother’s wisdom and integrity, Simone Schwarz-Bart’s unforgettable
women characters use the power of expression to combat the abuses of racial
and sexual domination.
Works
Un Plat de Porc aux Bananes Vertes. 1967. (A Dish of Pork with Green Bananas, 1967)
La Mulâtresse Solitude. 1972. (A Woman Named Solitude, 1972)
Pluie et Vent sur Télumée Miracle. 1972. (The Bridge of Beyond. 1972.)
Ti Jean L’Horizon. 1979. (Between Two Worlds. 1981.)
"An Author’s Perspective on Her Own Creation: Reflections of Simone Schwarz-Bart on Her Novel Pluie et Vent Sur Télumée Miracle." BIM 18, no 71 (December 1987): 27-35.
Ton Beau Capitaine:pièce en un acte et quatre tableaux. 1987. (Your Handsome Captain. 1989.)
Interviews
Rivel, Moune de. "Rencontre avec Schwarz-Bart, jeune romancière guadeloupéene." Bingo, no. 66, March 1975: 45.
"Simone Schwarz-Bart, une femme sans prix." Paris-Match, 9 December 1972: 7.
Toumson, Helene and Roger. "Interview avec Simone et André
Schwarz-Bart: sur les pas de Fanotte." In Textes et Etudes Documents,
no. 2, edited by Roger Toumson: 13-23. Paris: Éditions Caribiennes,
1979.
Selected Bibliography
Review of Comparative Literature. June 1984. 236-248.
Busia, Abena P.A. "This Gift of Metaphor. Symbolic Strategies and the Triumph of Survival in Simone Schwarz-Bart’s The Bridge of Beyond." Out of the Kumbla: Caribbean Women and Literature. Carole Boyce Davies and Elaine Savory Fido, eds. Africa World Press, 1990. 289-301.
Karamcheti, Indira. "The Geographics of Marginality: Place and Textuality in Simone Schwarz-Bart and Anita Desai." Feminist Explorations of Literary Space. Margaret R. Higonnet and Joan Templeton, eds. Amherst: U Mass P, 1994. 125-146.
McKinney, Kitzie. "Memory, Voice, and Metaphor in the Works of Simone Schwarz-Bart." Postcolonial Subjects: Francophone Women Writers. Mary Jean Green, Karen Gould, Micheline Rice-Maximin, Keith L. Walker, Jack A. Yeager, eds. Minneapolis/ London: U Minnesota P, 1996. 22-41.
Black Literature Criticism Supplement. Detroit: Gale Research, 1999.
Black Writers. A selection of sketches from "Contemporary Authors." Second Edition. Detroit: Gale Research, 1994.
Caribbean Writers. A Bio-Bibliographical-Critical Encyclopedia. Edited by Donald E. Herdeck. Washington: Three Continents Press, 1979.
Modern Women Writers. Four volumes. Compiled and edited by Lillian
S.Robinson. New York, NY: Continuum Publishing Co., 1996.
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Author: Michelle Hunter, Spring 2000
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