SOURCE: "I Have Made Peace with My Island," in Callaloo, Vol. 12, No. 1, Winter, 1989, pp. 85-133.

In the following excerpt, Condé discusses the influence her childhood in Guadeloupe, her family, and her political beliefs have on her literary work.

[Clark]: How would you describe the Boucolon family's reputation in Guadeloupe?

[Condé]: My parents were among the first black instructors. My mother was the first black woman instructor among her generation, and also the first black director of her own school for girls. When my father stopped teaching, he founded a small bank with black and mulatto acquaintances of his called La Caisse Coopérative des Prêts which later became La Banque Antillaise. The original enterprise was designed to provide loans for functionaries. Under pressure from the capitalist world, the bank became a French-controlled bank like all the others. My parents were very well known; my father had been...