"An Exploration into the Themes of the Negritude Movement Expressed in Myriam Warner-Vieyra's Juletane"

In Guadelopean writer Myriam Warner-Vieyra's semi-autographical 1982 novel Juletane, the titular central character explores her African heritage and connection to the African diaspora in the three geographical zones marked by the historical triangle trade: she was born in the Antilles to Caribbean parents, she grew up and was educated in Europe, and she moved to Africa with Mamadou, her shared husband.

Warner-Vieyra utilizes the trajectory and experiences of Juletane's life to explore several principal themes of the Negritude Movement, a twentieth-century literary movement propounded by francophone intellectuals of the African diaspora to raise and cultivate the global Black consciousness, including Aimé Césaire's concept of the collective unconsciousness, Leopold Senghor's theory of the Universalism, and Édouard Glissant's imagery of the rhizome.

Warner-Vieyra's novel empowers us to reflect on the influence of our ancestral background on as well as the importance of finding dignity in the manifestation of one's own identity.

- Eli Staubi '25