Marie-Reine de Jaham (born February 7, 1940) is a Martiniquais-born writer living in France. Descended from French

planters Planters Nut & Chocolate Company is an American snack food company now owned by Hormel Foods. Planters is best known for its processed nuts and for the Mr. Peanut icon that symbolizes them. Mr. Peanut was created by grade schooler Antonio Gentil ...

, she is the granddaughter of and the first cousin twice removed of

Joséphine de Beauharnais Josephine may refer to: People * Josephine (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Josephine (singer), a Greek pop singer Places *Josephine, Texas, United States *Mount Josephine (disambiguation) * Josephine Count ...

. At the age of 17, she married and moved with her husband to the United States. There, she began a career in advertising in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

; she later moved to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, where she founded her own agency. In 1990, she established a Creole cultural association, Le Patrimoine Créole. She is considered one of the best-informed experts on Creole culture. de Jaham moved to

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

in 2000. There, she established the Cercle Méditerranée Caraïbe with the aim of establishing links between the Mediterranean region and the Caribbean. In 1989, she published her first novel ''La Grande Béké'', which became a bestseller and was adapted for television in 1998. In 1991, she published a second novel ''Le Maître-savane'' which continued the story begun in her first novel. In 1996, de Jaham was named a Chevalier in the French

Ordre des Arts et des Lettres The ''Ordre des Arts et des Lettres'' (Order of Arts and Letters) is an order of France established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture. Its supplementary status to the was confirmed by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963. Its purpose is ...

. She was promoted officer in january 2013

Selected works

* ''Les desserts créoles et leur complice le sucre de canne'', cook book (1992) * ''L’Or des îles'' (1996), ''Le Sang du volcan'' (1997), ''Les Héritiers du paradis.'' (1998): trilogy, the first volume received the Prix Arc-en-ciel and the first two volumes received the

Prix littéraire des Caraïbes The Prix littéraire des Caraïbes (''Caribbean Literary Prize'') is a French literary award which was created in 1964 by l’Association des Écrivains de langue française (Association of French language writers). The award honors a writer from ...

from the * ''Bwa bandé'', novel (1999) * ''Le Sortilège des marassa'', novel (2001) * ''La cuisine créole de Da Doudou'', cook book (2004) * ''La Véranda créole'', novel (2005) * ''a Caravelle Liberté'', novel (2007)

References

External links

* 1940 births Living people Martiniquais writers Martiniquais women writers Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres {{Martinique-writer-stub