Marie-Claire Matip Marie-Claire Matip Marie-Claire-Eléonore-Débochère Matip (born 1938) is a Cameroonian writer living in Paris. The daughter of a tribal leader, she was born in Eséka; her father had about fifty children from several different mothers. She was schooled at home at first and then attended school locally. Then, she studied at a college for girls in Douala, where she wrote her novel "Ngonda". In 1956, she won a contest sponsored by "Elle" magazine and Air France that allowed her to travel to France; she returned the following year. In 1958, she studied for her baccalauréat at the Lycée Général Leclerc in
Marie-Claire Heureuse Félicité she was granted a pension 1,200 gourdes. In 1849, when Faustin I of Haiti became Emperor, he idealized the late Dessalines and enlarged Marie-Claire's pension as a sign of his admiration. Marie-Claire, who felt no sympathy for this attitude, refused the money. She moved in with her granddaughter, and lived in poverty until her death in 1858 in Gonaïves. In her honour, the Fondation Marie-Claire Heureuse Félicité Bonheur Dessalines, also known as the Fondasyon Félicité (FF), was established by Dr Bayyinah Bello in 1999 to undertake humanitarian, social and educational work in Haiti. Soon after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the