The cultural and political world of the archipelago paid a unanimous tribute to this militant who died Sunday at the age of 73.
Le Monde with AFP
Déwé Gorodey, the first Kanak novelist and a pioneer of the struggle for the independence of New Caledonia, died on Sunday August 14 at the age of 73. Suffering from cancer for many years, Déwé Gorodey died at the Hospital of Poindimié, on the East Coast, said the government.
The Calédonian college government paid tribute to a “renowned international independence and writer Kanak, who marked the life” of the local executive, of which she was a member for twenty years from 1999 to 2019, in charge In particular of culture, female condition and citizenship.
The FLNKS, historical coalition of the Kanak struggle, praised “a great lady of heart and spirit”, who “has always fought for the freedom of his people and the full sovereignty of his country”, while that the deputy Philippe Dunoyer (Renaissance) regretted the death “of a woman of spirit, a strong woman with tireless commitment”.
Several stays in prison
born in 1949 in Ponérihouen, in northeast of New Caledonia, Déwé Gorodey continued studies of letters between 1969 and 1973 in Montpellier where she opens both to writing and politics, immersing themselves of the protests and liberation ideas of May 1968.
Upon her return her native island, she entered the first Kanak independence movements and participates in militant actions, which will earn her several stays in prison.
She was a member of the Palika (Kanak Liberation Party), one of the two main components of the FLNKS. It is behind bars that she composes her first collection of poetry entitled under the ashes of the Conques, militant work and hymn to her Oceanian culture.
author of the first novel Kanak published
Déwé Gorodey is also the author of several collections of news, aphorisms and a play. In 2005, this feminist activist published the Epave, the first novel Kanak never published, which breaks the taboo of sexual abuse and violence against women.
“Déwé Gorodey leaves us a remarkable literary work. In 2008, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature, associated him with illustrious French, ultramarine or international authors who accompanied him in his writing path, “recalled Gilbert Bladinières, his publisher in New Caledonia.
The Caledonian cultural world has praised the heritage of its action within the government citing in particular the creation of the Maison du Langues, the Kanak Academy of Languages, the Oceanian Book Fair (Silo), or the pole Music and dance export (poemar).