Déwé Gorodé

Writer, Poet, and Politician · 1949–2022

Who is Déwé Gorodé?

Déwé Gorodé was born in Ponérihouen on the east coast of Grande Terre, New Caledonia, and became the first Kanak writer to pursue a fully public literary career, as well as a lifelong activist for Kanak independence and women's rights. She was active in the independence movement from the early 1970s, enduring imprisonment for her activism, and in 1985 published Sous les cendres des conques ("Under the Ashes of the Conch Shells"), a landmark collection of poems that opened the way for Kanak voices to claim the French written language as a tool of their own political and cultural expression. Over the following decades she published numerous collections of poetry, short stories, and novels exploring Kanak identity, colonization, and the situation of Kanak women. Beyond literature, she pursued a long political career, serving as a member of the Congress of New Caledonia and holding ministerial and vice-presidential roles in the territorial government, including Vice-President of New Caledonia. She died in Poindimié in August 2022 at the age of seventy-three, remembered as one of the most influential cultural and political figures of modern Kanak history.

Sources: English Wikipedia, "Déwé Gorodey" · The Conversation, "Déwé Gorodey: l'héritage d'une figure majeure de Nouvelle-Calédonie" (2023) · Outremers360, "Grandes figures des Outre-mer: Déwé Gorodé"

Quotes by Déwé Gorodé

Je suis la femme de l'ombre et du feu, celle qui marche sans bruit sur les cendres, celle qui parle aux pierres et aux vents, pour que la mémoire ne meure pas.

“I am the woman of shadow and fire, she who walks silently upon the ashes, who speaks to the stones and the winds, so that memory does not die.”

A declaration of the poet's role as keeper of Kanak memory and identity through the violence and silence of colonization.

Déwé Gorodé

Source: Déwé Gorodé, Sous les cendres des conques (1985)