Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

9-30-2021

Publication Title

Transnational Africana Women’s Fictions

Volume

1

Issue

13

Pages

1-27

Publisher Name

Taylor & Francis

Publisher Location

London, UK

Abstract

The chapter contends that Maryse Condé’s novel Desirada has been repeatedly read as an identity quest novel, since the narrative impulse is determined by the protagonist’s search for her father’s identity. It argues, however, that Condé goes one step further by entirely subverting the identity quest narrative and presenting us with an excess, the production of fiction, which becomes something entirely different: a quest for an aesthetic truth rather than a filially determined identity. As such, by presenting us with a pastiche of the identity quest model, Condé’s transnationalism moves from minor to major, as her critique aims to dismantle the solidification of postcolonial ideology within the fields of literary and cultural studies.

Identifier

9781003177272

Comments

Author Posting © Taylor & Francis, 2021. This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Transnational Africana Women’s Fictions on 30 September 2021, available online: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781003177272/transnational-africana-women-fictions-cheryl-sterling?refId=24555a93-f3ce-4887-8d48-3119458686cd&context=ubx

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