Nelly-Pierrette Guesde (1908 – November 15, 1965), best known by her pen name Makhali-Phâl, was a French Cambodian poet and novelist.

Biography

Nelly-Pierrette Guesde was born in 1908 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, although by some accounts her birth year was 1898.[1][2][3] She was the daughter of a Cambodian mother, Néang Mali, and a father who was a member of the French colonial administration, Pierre Mathieu Théodore Guesde.[1][2][4] In her early childhood she received a Buddhist education, but her father then placed her in a convent, as he wanted to give her a Catholic education.[2][5] At age seven, she left Cambodia to live in France, in Pau, with her paternal grandmother and grandfather, who by at least one account was the writer Jules Guesde.[5]

When Guesde was 20 years old, she left Pau for Paris.[5] A few years later, she published her first book of poetry, Cambodge, which was followed by Chant de Paix, "dedicated to the Khmer people."[2] Both works received significant recognition, notably from such writers as Paul Claudel, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Francis de Miomandre, and others. She wrote under the pen name Makhali-Phâl, which reportedly referred to the sound made by the goddess Kali's plow.[2][3]

Though her writing largely focused on the Cambodia of her youth, Guesde never returned to her birth country, and she did not speak Khmer as an adult.[3] She never married, although she lived with a much older romantic partner until his death in 1957.[3] She died in Pau in 1965.[4][5]

Critical reception

Makhali-Phâl is considered one of only a handful of important examples of Francophone Cambodian writers in this period.[3][6] With the publication of her first two books of poetry, she gained recognition for both the formal quality of her writing and for establishing a dialogue between her two cultures, French and Cambodian, combining French symbolist literature with Khmer cultural tradition.[2] Cultural touchstones such as the sacred sites of Angkor Wat frequently appear in her work.[7] She sought out a readership in both Europe and Asia.[8]

A 1940 article in the journal L'Echo annamite paid homage to Makhali-Phâl's writing on her Buddhist and Khmer culture: "Cambodge is a short poem in three parts. But it is enough to mark Makhali-Phâl as the greatest Buddhist poet of our day. ... The Khmer people, who have been silent for millennia, have suddenly found this child with a prophetic voice to tell the world of her miracle and her first faith."[9]

Her first novel, La Favorite de dix ans, received positive critical reception for dealing with encounters between her different cultures; it was translated into English in 1942 as The Young Concubine, gaining a significant readership in the United States.[1][2] It was followed by her book Narayana, ou Celui qui se meut sur les eaux, which won the Académie Française's Prix Lange in 1944.[8][10]

Despite her early success, Makhali-Phâl's later novels sold poorly. Her final two books, L'Asie en flammes and L'Égyptienne, were published posthumously.[3]

Selected works

  • Cambodge, 1933
  • Chant de paix, 1937
  • La Favorite de dix ans, 1940
  • Narayana, ou Celui qui se meut sur les eaux, 1942
  • Le Festin des vautours, 1946
  • Le Roi d'Angkor, 1952
  • Le Feu et l'amour, 1953
  • Mémoires de Cléopâtre, 1956
  • L'Asie en flammes, 1965
  • L'Égyptienne: moi, Cléopâtre reine, 1979

References

  1. 1 2 3 Relations familiales dans les littératures française et francophone des XXe et XXIe siècles. Murielle Lucie Clément, Sabine van Wesemael, Universiteit van Amsterdam. Paris: Harmattan. 2008. ISBN 978-2-296-05831-6. OCLC 256788301.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Makhali-Phal". Angkor Database. Retrieved 2022-04-07.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Serrano, Richard (2006-11-24). Against the Postcolonial: "francophone" Writers at the Ends of French Empire. Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-7391-2029-3.
  4. 1 2 Crippa, Simona. "MAKHALI-PHÂL". Le Dictionnaire universel des Créatrices (in French). Retrieved 2022-04-07.
  5. 1 2 3 4 de., La Rochefoucauld, Edmée (1970). Courts métrages. Grasset. OCLC 743104451.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. ↑ Pham, Bieu Chi (1991). "Culture despite colonialism: French policy in Vietnam, then and now". San Jose State University – via ProQuest.
  7. ↑ Edwards, Penny (2007-02-28). Cambodge: The Cultivation of a Nation, 1860–1945. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-6175-9.
  8. 1 2 Bush, Ruth (2016). Publishing Africa in French: Literary Institutions and Decolonization 1945-1967. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-1-78138-195-3.
  9. ↑ Vo-Van-Thom (1940-02-02). "Un grand poète Khmer : Makhati Phal". L'Écho annamite (in French).
  10. ↑ "MAKHALI-PHAL". Académie française (in French). Retrieved 2022-04-07.
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