1 - From island to metropolis: the making of a poet

Summary

I adore volcanoes

Aimé Césaire

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Aimé Césaire

The poet Aimé Césaire was born in 1913 in the French Caribbean island of Martinique. Like many ambitious post-emancipation blacks in the archipelago during the early decades of the twentieth century, his parents, Fernand and Eléonore, were passionately devoted to instilling in their children a deep respect for education, and they made extra-ordinary sacrifices to ensure that all six of their children took full advantage of the opportunities available on the island and in the metropolis. These sacrifices on the altar of education were by no means insignificant, considering the social strictures on members of an ex-slave population in a plantation economy. When, for instance, the eleven-year-old Aimé, who was already an intense, even voracious, reader, won a coveted scholarship to secondary school (lycée) in Fort-de-France, the family moved from Basse Pointe – the poet's birthplace – to the capital in order to facilitate the studies of their gifted offspring.

Many anecdotes relating to the poet's infancy and early childhood in Basse Pointe emphasize the intense parental focus on schooling and, in particular, on the mastery of the French language, which, of course, was one of the pillars of the entire colonial system and a virtual guarantee of upward mobility. Not content with the pace and rigor of the primary school curriculum in Basse Pointe, Césaire's father, Fernand, conducted supplementary classes at home, awakening his children every day at 6 a.m. to give them instruction until 7:45.