Contact: Maridith Geuder
STARKVILLE, Miss.--An internationally recognized novelist, poet and short story writer from the island nation of Mauritius will be featured March 27 at Mississippi State.
Ananda Devi is considered among the most prominent contemporary figures in French-language literature from the Indian Ocean region. "Languages, Writings, and Identities," her 4 p.m. public presentation, takes place in the first-floor Rogers Auditorium of McCool Hall.
Co-sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences and its foreign languages department, her visit is part of the department's "Mauritius Week" celebration. Also scheduled the following week is a visit by Nobel laureate J.M.G. Le Clézio, who maintains a Mauritius home. [See www.msstate.edu/web/media/detail.php?id=4499.]
"We are thrilled that Ananda Devi has included this special visit to Mississippi State as part of her U.S. tour," said Salah Khan, the assistant professor of French who coordinated the visit. "Ms. Devi's powerful voice and her deep understanding of the human condition have received worldwide attention."
Devi was born in 1957 on the tiny island located about 900 miles east of the much larger island nation of Madagascar. Her writing reflects the themes of exclusion, suffering and the limitations and possibilities created by harsh societal forces.
She first gained acclaim at age 15 by winning a coveted prize in a short-story competition organized by Radio France Internationale, the French national broadcasting corporation. She since has published nine novels and garnered numerous international prizes, including the top honor in Francophone literature, the Award of the Five Continents of La Francophonie for her 2006 novel "Eve de ses Décembres."
Educated as an ethnologist and anthropologist, Devi is particularly interested in the overlap between languages and identities. She is trilingual in French, English and Creole, and provided the English translation for her novel "Pagli."
Her most recent novel, "Indian Tango," takes place in New Delhi, India.
Devi's current tour of the U.S. is organized by the Délégation générale de l'Alliance Française aux Etats-Unis, with support from the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie.
For more, telephone the foreign languages department at 662-325-3480.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.