Gisèle Pineau
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Gisèle Pineau (born 18 May 1956) is a French novelist, writer and former
psychiatric Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of deleterious mental conditions. These include matters related to cognition, perceptions, mood, emotion, and behavior. Initial psychiatric assessment of ...
nurse. Although born in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, her origins are
Guadeloupean Guadeloupe is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands—Basse-Terre Island, Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Guadeloupe, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galant ...
and she has written several books on the difficulties and torments of her childhood as a Black person growing up in Parisian society.


Early life and career

In 1956, Gisèle Pineau was born in Paris, France. During her youth, she divided her time between France and Guadeloupe due to her father's stationing in the military. Pineau struggled with her identity as a Black immigrant due to the racism and xenophobia she experienced at her all-white school in the Kremlin-Bicêtre suburb. Pineau took to writing in order to console the difficulties of her French upbringing and Caribbean heritage, as her works would connect the two cultures rather than separating them. She is aligned with the ''
créolité ''Créolité'' is a literary movement first developed in the 1980s by the Martinique, Martinican writers Patrick Chamoiseau, Jean Bernabé and Raphaël Confiant. They published ''Eloge de la créolité'' (In Praise of Creoleness) in 1989 as a resp ...
'' literary movement, and in the 1990s was among the most prominent of Guadeloupean ''créolité''-adjacent writers, alongside . In her writings, she uses the oral tradition of storytelling in fictional works to reclaim the narratives of Caribbean culture. She also focuses on
racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...
and the effects it can have on a young girl trying to discover her own cultural identity. Her book ''L'Exil Selon Julia'' highlights this, as she relies on the memories and experiences of her aged grandmother to help her learn about her society's traditions and her own cultural background. In the book, she also mentions that the discrimination she felt as a child did not only apply to French society in Paris, but also to the people of Guadeloupe, who rejected her for being too cosmopolitan upon her return to the land of her ancestors. She for many years lived in Paris and, whilst maintaining her writing career, has also returned to being a psychiatric nurse in order to balance out her life; but she recently has moved back to Guadeloupe.


Bibliography

* 1992: ''Un papillon dans la cité'' * 1993: ''La Grande Drive des esprits'',
Grand prix des lectrices de Elle The Grand prix des lectrices de Elle is a French literary prize awarded by readers of ''Elle'' magazine. History Unlike other literary prizes that have professionals for their juries and selection committees, the Grand prix des lectrices de Elle i ...
* 1995: ''L'Espérance-Macadam'', Prix RFO du livre (1996) * 1996: ''L'Exil selon Julia'' * 1998: ''L’âme prêtée aux oiseaux'' * 1998: ''Le cyclone Marilyn'' * 1998: ''Femmes des Antilles'' * 1999: ''Caraïbe sur Seine'' * 2001: ''Case mensonge'' * 2002: ''Chair piment'' * 2004: ''Les colères du Volcan'' * 2005: ''Fleur de barbarie'' * 2007: ''Mes quatre femmes'' * 2007: ''C'est la règle'' * 2008: ''Morne Câpresse'' * 2010: ''Folie, aller simple'' * 2010: ''L’odyssée d’Alizée'' * 2012: ''Cent Vies et des Poussières'' * 2015: ''Les voyages de Merry Sisal''


References


External links


Gisèle Pineau


{{DEFAULTSORT:Pineau, Gisele 20th-century French novelists 21st-century French novelists 20th-century French women writers 1956 births French people of Guadeloupean descent Living people 21st-century French women writers Writers from Paris Créolité