Gisèle Pineau is a Guadeloupean writer born in Paris in 1956. In 1960, she traveled to Guadeloupe.
Where does her passion come from?
Her passion for writing began very early in childhood. She would watch her mother read and reread novels she herself described and considered as “romance novels,” and whenever she had time, she would immerse herself in them as if time stood still around her. Gisèle, too young to fully understand, would see her mother smile at times, sense sorrow in her gaze, or notice sadness when a tear rolled down her cheek. She first developed a feeling of jealousy, because during the moments when her mother was reading, she devoted all her attention to it. The little girl she was felt “neglected.”
She begins writing at the age of 7
This is how the literary world caught her attention. She began to read, and at the age of seven she started writing stories that aroused the interest of her readers.
Her path
She lived in France until 1970, a period during which she experienced her first encounters with racism and issues of identity. She was very close to her grandmother, “Man Ya,” who told her the history of Guadeloupe and the arrival of enslaved people there.
Her father, a career soldier, was transferred to Martinique in 1970. Gisèle followed him and continued her studies there, then in Guadeloupe, where she obtained her baccalaureate in literature.
Back in Paris, she began studying literature at the University of Nanterre, but was forced to stop two years later for financial reasons. She later obtained a diploma as a mental health nurse. She is the mother of two children and currently works as a psychiatric nurse in Guadeloupe.
Her works
Several of her novels have received awards: La Grande Drive des esprits won the Grand Prix des lectrices of ELLE magazine and the Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe in 1993; L’Espérance-Macadam received the Prix RFO in 1995; L’Exil selon Julia won the Prix Terre de France and the Prix Rotary in 1996; and Folie, aller simple: Journée ordinaire d’une infirmière received the Prix Carbet des lycéens in 2011.
