Aimé Césaire
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Aimé Fernand David Césaire (born June 20, 1913) is a Martinican poet, author and politician.
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[edit] Biography
Aimé Césaire was born in Basse-Pointe, Martinique. In 1931, he traveled to Paris to attend the Lycée Louis-le Grand on an educational scholarship. In Paris, Césaire, along with Léopold Sédar Senghor and Léon Damas, created the literary review L'Étudiant Noir (The Black Student) which was a forerunner of the Négritude movement. In 1936, Césaire began work on his book-length poem Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (Notebook of a Return to My Native Land, 1939), a vivid and powerful depiction of the ambiguities of African life and culture in the New World.
Césaire married fellow student Martinican Suzanne Roussi in 1937. Together they moved back to Martinique in 1939 with their young son. Césaire became a teacher at the Lycée Schoelcher in Fort-de-France, where he taught Frantz Fanon and served as an inspiration for, but did not teach, Édouard Glissant.
The years of World War II were ones of great intellectual activity for the Césaires. In 1941, Aimé Césaire and Suzanne Roussi founded the literary review Tropiques, with the help of other Martinican intellectuals like René Ménil and Aristide Maugée, in order to challenge the cultural status quo and alienation that then characterized Martinican identity. Many run-ins with censorship did not deter Césaire from being an outspoken defendant of Martinican identity. He also became close to French surrealist poet André Breton, who spent time in Martinique during the war. Breton contributed a laudatory introduction to the 1947 edition of Cahier d'un retour au pays natal, saying that "this poem is nothing less than the greatest lyrical monument of our times." ("ce poème [n'est] rien moins que le plus grand monument lyrique de ce temps").
In 1945, Césaire was elected French National Assembly member from Martinique, as a member of the French Communist Party. Later that year he was elected mayor of Fort-de-France. In his book "Discourse on Colonialism" Cesaire states that the world could look toward the Soviet Union as an example of human progress, virtue, and an exemplar of human rights. Césaire's support of communism can be understood in the political context preceding the decolonization movement of the 1960s. Communism appeared as an ideology opposed to colonialism, and the Soviet Union as an alternative to the colonial powers. However, in the following years, Césaire gradually became disillusioned by the French Communist Party's perceived lack of action on issues surrounding race. In 1956, after the invasion of Hungary by the Soviet Union, Aimé Césaire announced his resignation from the French Communist Party in a letter to party leader Maurice Thorez. Two years later he founded the Parti Progressiste Martiniquais. He retired from politics in 2001.
In 2006, he refused to meet the leader of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), Nicolas Sarkozy, a probable contender for the 2007 presidential election, because the UMP had voted for the February 23, 2005 law asking teachers and textbooks to "acknowledge and recognize in particular the positive role of the French presence abroad, especially in North Africa." President Jacques Chirac finally had the controversial law repealed.
His writings reflect his passion for civic and social engagement. He is the author of Discours sur le colonialisme (Discourse on Colonialism) (1950), a denunciation of European colonial racism which was published in the French review Présence Africaine. In 1968, he published the first version of Une Tempête, a radical adaptation of Shakespeare's play The Tempest for a black audience.
[edit] Césaire's relationship with the Soviet Union
In his book "Discourse on Colonialism" Cesaire states that the world can look toward the Soviet Union as an example of human progress, virtue, and an exemplar of human rights.
This opinion can be understood in the political context preceding the decolonization movement of 1960, in which communism appeared as an ideology opposed to colonialism, and the Soviet Union as an alternative to the colonial powers.
In 1956, after the invasion of Hungary by the Soviet Union, Cesaire distanced himself from the French Communist Party and created the Martinique Progress Party (PPM for Parti Progressiste Martiniquais) as a vehicle for his emancipation ideology.
[edit] Works
[edit] Poetry
- Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (1939), Return to my native land (bilingual edition), Paris: Présence Africaine 1968
- Armes miraculeuses (1946)
- Soleil cou coupé (1947)
- Corps perdu (1950)
- Ferrements (1960)
- Cadastre (1961)
- Moi, laminaire (1982)
- Collected Poetry, University of California Press (1983)
[edit] Plays
- Et les Chiens se taisaient, tragédie: arrangement théâtral. Paris: Présence Africaine, 1958, 1997.
- La Tragédie du roi Christophe. Paris: Présence Africaine, 1963, 1993. The tragedy of King Christophe, New York: Grove 1969
- Une Tempête, adapted from The Tempest by William Shakespeare: adaptation pour un théâtre nègre. Paris: Seuil, 1969, 1997. A Tempest, New York: Ubu repertory 1986
- Une Saison au Congo. Paris: Seuil, 1966, 2001. A season in the Congo, New York 1968, A play about Patrice Lumumba
[edit] Other writings
- Discourse sur le colonialism, Paris: Présence Africaine, 1955.
- Toussaint Louverture; La Révolution française et le problème colonial. Paris: Présence Africaine, 1961/62.
[edit] Film about Césaire
Aimé Césaire - une voix pour l'histoire, (1994). French with English subtitles, Director: Euzhan Palcy
[edit] References
- Césaire, Aimé (1957). Letter to Maurice Thorez. Paris: Présence africaine. p. 7.
- Christian Filostrat, La Négritude et la "Conscience raciale et révolutionaire sociale" d'Aimé Césaire. Présence Francophone No 21, Automne 1980. pp 119 - 130.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Aime Cesaire, biography, by Brooke Ritz, Postcolonial Studies website, English Department, Emory University. 1999.
- Aimé Césaire, bibliography, biography, and links (in French), "île en île", City University of New York, 1998-2004.
- Aimé Césaire, biography and bibliography, Pegasos literature related resources, 2002.
- Khalid Chraibi, an interview with Aimé Césaire, (in French) on occasion of the Paris première of "La Tragédie du Roi Christophe" in 1965
