Cracked roots: Identity in Maryse Conde's "Heremakhonon"

Identity in the African diaspora has been an issue of great interest in recent years. In her first novel Heremakhonon, Maryse Conde explores African diasporan female identity. She brings into question multi-culturalism, race stratification, classism, and sexism as major influences in developing identity for the African diasporan woman. For Conde's protagonist in the novel, Veronica, fragmented consciousness is manifested by movement from Guadeloupe, her birth land, to France, to Africa in search of a place or an individual who might help her "heal" her identity. In addition to establishing the existence of fragmentation of consciousness in her character, Conde creates a unique narrative voice which employs elements of autonomous interior monologue to explore the female Diasporan perspective. Finally, Maryse Conde, through the experiences of her character Veronica, refutes the essentialist view of identity in African peoples of the world.