Jacqueline Manicom

Manicom was born in Guadeloupe, the eldest of twenty children born to parents of South Asian origin.^[1] She trained as a midwife, and studied law and philosophy in Paris.

Manicom worked at a public hospital in Paris as a young woman. She also worked in radio and television, and taught philosophy courses. In the late 1960s she worked with Simone de Beauvoir on women's rights in France, was a founding member of Choisir la Cause des Femmes (CHOISIR), and especially focused her activism on the legalization of abortion.^[2] She and her husband founded a family planning clinic in Guadeloupe.^[3][4]

Manicom wrote two autobiographical novels in French,^[5] Mon examen de blanc (1972)^[6] and La graine : journal d'une sage-femme (1974),^[7] both stories of Caribbean immigrant women in medical settings,^[8] both with themes of race, class, gender, and sexuality in the context of French colonialism and French Caribbean independence.^{[9][10][11][12]}

Manicom married philosophy professor Yves Letourneur. They had two children. She died in 1976, aged 41.^[2][4][13]