Marie-Reine de Jaham

Marie-Reine de Jaham (born February 7, 1940) is a Martiniquais writer.^[1]

Descended from French planters, she is the granddaughter of Victor Depaz [fr] and the first cousin twice removed of Joséphine de Beauharnais. At the age of 17, she married and moved with her husband to the United States. There, she began a career in advertising in New York City; she later moved to Paris, where she founded her own agency. In 1990, she established a Creole cultural association, Le Patrimoine Créole.^[1] She is considered one of the best-informed experts on Creole culture.^[2] de Jaham moved to Nice in 2000. There, she established the Cercle Méditerranée Caraïbe with the aim of establishing links between the Mediterranean region and the Caribbean.^[1]

In 1989, she published her first novel La Grande Béké, which became a bestseller and was adapted for television in 1998. In 1991, she published a second novel Le Maître-savane which continued the story begun in her first novel.^[1]

In 1996, de Jaham was named a Chevalier in the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.^[1] She was promoted officer in january 2013^[3]

Selected works^[1]

Les desserts créoles et leur complice le sucre de canne, cook book (1992)
L’Or des îles (1996), Le Sang du volcan (1997), Les Héritiers du paradis. (1998): trilogy, the first volume received the Prix Arc-en-ciel and the first two volumes received the Prix littéraire des Caraïbes from the Association des écrivains de langue française [fr]
Bwa bandé, novel (1999)
Le Sortilège des marassa, novel (2001)
La cuisine créole de Da Doudou, cook book (2004)
La Véranda créole, novel (2005)
a Caravelle Liberté, novel (2007)