Her first novel, Hérémakhonon, was published in 1976. It was so controversial that it was pulled from the shelves after six months because of its criticism over the success of African socialism. While the story closely parallels Condé's own life during her first stay in Guinea, and is written as a first-person narrative, she stresses that it is not an autobiography.Lionnet, F. (1989). "Happiness Deferred: Maryse Condé's Heremakhonon and the Failure of Enunciation". In Autobiographical Voices: Race, Gender, Self-Portraiture (pp. 167–190). Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press. The book is the story, as she described it, of an "'anti-moi', an ambiguous persona whose search for identity and origins is characterized by a rebellious form of sexual libertinage".
