Simone Schwarz-Bart

Simone Schwarz-Bart (born Simone Brumant on 8 January 1938) is a French novelist and playwright of Guadeloupean origin.

Simone Brumant was born on 8 January 1938 at Saintes in the Charente-Maritime province of France. Her place of birth is not clear, however, as she has also stated that she was born in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe.

Her parents were originally from Guadeloupe. Her father was a soldier while her mother was a teacher. When the Second World War broke out, her father stayed in France to fight, while she and her mother returned to Guadeloupe.

She studied at Pointe-à-Pitre, followed by Paris and Dakar.

At the age of 18, while studying in Paris, she met her future husband, André Schwarz-Bart, who encouraged her to take up writing as a career. They married in 1960, and lived at various times in Senegal, Switzerland, Paris, and Guadeloupe.

Schwarz-Bart at one time ran a Creole furniture business as well as a restaurant.

Her husband died in 2006. They have two sons, Jacques Schwarz-Bart, a noted jazz saxophonist, and Bernard Schwarz-Bart.

She currently lives in Goyave, a small village in Guadeloupe.

In 1967, together with her husband, André Schwarz-Bart, she wrote Un plat de porc aux bananas vertes, a historical novel exploring the parallels in the exiles of Caribbeans and Jews. In 1972, they published La Mulâtresse Solitude. In 1989, they wrote a six-volume encyclopaedia Hommage à la femme noire (In Praise of Black Women), to honour the black heroines who were missing in the official historiography.

Despite being mentioned as her husband's collaborator in their works, critics have often attributed full authorship to André Schwarz-Bart, and only his name appears in the French edition of La Mulâtresse Solitude. Her authorship is acknowledged, however, in the English translation of the book.

In 1972, Schwarz-Bart wrote Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle, which is considered one of the masterpieces of Caribbean literature. In 1979, she published Ti jean l'horizon.

Schwarz-Bart has also written for the theatre: Ton beau capitaine was a well-received play in one act.

Themes

Schwarz-Bart, along with her husband, is deeply committed to political issues, and the issues faced by people, especially women, of colour. She has explored the languages and locations of her ancestry in her works, and examines male domination over women in the Caribbean, as well as themes of alienation in exile.

In 1973, Schwarz-Bart's Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle was awarded the Grand prix des lectrices de Elle. In 2006, Schwarz-Bart was awarded the rank of a Commander in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2008, she received the Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe et du Tout-Monde (together with her husband, posthumously) for her lifetime of literary works.