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Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women's Writing (CCWW)

Gisèle Pineau

Gisèle_Pineau_(2018) Librarie Mollat WikiCommons 3.0.jpg
Gisèle Pineau, 2018 (Photo: Librairie Mollat via WIkimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0)

Gisèle Pineau has lived a life marked by travel and continuous displacement, and these themes unsurprisingly lie at the core of her creative writing. She was born in 1956 in Paris to Guadeloupean parents. As a child, she spent brief periods in mainland France, Martinique, Guadeloupe, the Republic of the Congo, and Senegal, following her father who was an officer in the French Army. She returned to Paris to train to become a psychiatric nurse, and then moved to Guadeloupe where she practised the profession for twenty years. In 2000, Pineau moved back to Paris. She has since returned to the Caribbean, and she now lives on the island of Marie-Galante. 

Pineau began her writing career in 1988, after winning a prize to publish three short stories in a collection aimed at celebrating the work of budding Caribbean writers. The short stories ‘Paroles de terre en larmes’, ‘Léna’, and ‘Ombres créoles’ address themes such as alienation, mental illness, loneliness, and the female condition. She was no doubt inspired to write about these issues by her parallel career as a psychiatric nurse. Indeed, much later in her career, she published Folie, aller simple (2010), an autobiographical narrative in which she explores her role caring for her patients in Paris, a task she carries out with patience and humility.

Another important theme in her work is the cyclical nature of trauma and violence. Her texts examine how the dehumanization of enslavement, captivity, and forced displacement in the Caribbean has caused an enduring and overwhelming experience of trauma for Caribbean peoples. Novels such as L’Espérance-macadam (1995), Chair piment (2002), and Morne Câpresse (2008) depict personal trauma, sexual abuse, patriarchal oppression, and environmental injustice as the damaging legacy of the French colonial project. Her most recent novel, La Vie privée d’oubli (2024), tells of the experiences of two young Guadeloupean women who, unable to find work on the island, travel to Paris as drugs mules. This novel shows that the Caribbean islands continue to be under-resourced, exploited, and locked in a (neo)colonial relationship with mainland France.

Furthermore, Pineau is interested in shining a light on significant historical figures and episodes which have been marginalized in the French national narrative. She endeavours to draw attention to these blind spots, creating a more diverse and inclusive understanding of what it has meant to be French throughout history. For example, in 2020 she published Ady, soleil noir. This text is a creative reimagining of Adrienne Fidelin, a Guadeloupean dancer living in Paris in the 1930s and little-known muse, model, and lover of American photographer Man Ray. 

In at least four of her narratives – ‘Paroles de terre en larmes’, La Grande drive des esprits (1993), L’Exil selon Julia (1996), and Mes quatre femmes (2007) – she writes about la Dissidence. During the Vichy era, when France was occupied by the Nazis, Martinicans and Guadeloupeans crossed the Caribbean Sea in dangerous conditions to reach the British island of Saint Lucia, after which they travelled to the United States to join the Resistance movement and fight in France and North Africa. The Caribbean contribution to World War Two is little known, and Pineau seeks to write into history the sacrifices made by Martinican and Guadeloupean men and women. This endeavour is all the more personal for Pineau. As she explains in her autofictional work L’Exil selon Julia, her own father was a Dissident.

Like this text, much of Pineau’s writing has personal resonances, and she has written several autobiographical narratives. L’Exil selon Julia, arguably her most well-known work to date, blurs fiction with reality. Pineau distances herself from the narrative through the use of an unnamed narrator and through the title which refers to her grandmother. Through these narrative devices we learn a lot about Pineau’s own childhood of exile and the racism she experienced in France. Mes quatre femmes is a follow-up to this text. She documents the lives of her ancestor Angélique, her grandmother Julia, her aunt (and namesake) Gisèle, and her mother Daisy, shedding light on the complex relationships within her family. Other autobiographical narratives include Folie, aller simple, written about her experiences as a psychiatric nurse, and Un papillon dans la cité (1992), a text aimed at young children.

As the latter shows, Pineau has written for a range of audiences and engaged with different genres. To date, she has written seven books for young readers, works which are often inspired by her own experiences of growing up between French and Creole cultures. She has also engaged with non-fictional genres. For instance, in 1998, she co-wrote (with journalist Marie Abraham) Femmes des Antilles: traces et voix cent cinquante ans après l'abolition de l'esclavage. This text combines historical accounts of the experiences of enslaved women in the Caribbean with contemporary reflections by their descendants on the horrors of slavery.

Pineau has been awarded several accolades for her writing, including the Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe et du Tout-Monde for La Grande Drive des esprits in 1994, the Prix Terre de France in 1996 for L’Exil selon Julia, and the Prix du roman historique in 2021 for Ady, soleil noir. In addition, she was named ‘Chevalier’ of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2018, in recognition of her contribution to French literature. Pineau’s work has been translated into English, Spanish, Japanese, and other languages by highly respected academics and translators, which is further testimony to her ability to speak to different communities and nationalities. 

Pineau is a prolific and engaging writer, and one of the most well-respected on the French Caribbean literary scene. Her work tackles the histories and realities of French Caribbean life, but it also deals with universal themes such as femininity, sexuality, trauma, migration, and discrimination, engaging a wide readership beyond the French Caribbean. Her writing is sensitive and cathartic but also provocative, urging readers to question their own identity and position in society.

Compiled by Antonia Wimbush (Melbourne)