Maryse Condé is Chair of the Center for French and Francophone Studies at Columbia University. She has been the recipient of La Grand Prix Literaire de la Femme and the Prix de L'Academie Francaise as well as the Prix Yourcenar and the Prix Carbet de la Caraibe, and also a Guggenheim fellowship. She lives in New York with her husband Richard Philcox, who is the translator of her work.