Introduction

Summary

Aimé Césaire is a major contemporary poet from the French Antilles who is renowned throughout the francophone world. Although he is perhaps best known to the English-speaking public for his early book-length poetic masterpiece Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (“Journal of a Homecoming”), he is the author of seven volumes of lyric verse and four works for the theater that have brought him international acclaim. Three of his plays, which he has himself described as forming a “triptych,” were composed in the 1960s and explore problems of political independence and cultural decolonization in major areas of the black world (Africa, the Caribbean and North America).

Céesaire has been an eloquent and robust critic of colonialism throughout his career, and some of his polemical prose essays on the subject, such as his Discours sur le colonialisme (Discourse on Colonialism), are veritable classics of the genre. A vivid idea of his stature in the French literary world may be gleaned from a cursory glance at some of the formal and informal honors he has garnered over the decades. These include not only prestigious French literary prizes, such as the Grand Prix National for poetry, but also the rare distinction of having special editions of his poems illustrated by artists of the caliber of Pablo Picasso and Wifredo Lam. In 1962, when he had not yet attained the age of fifty, a volume in the series Poetes d'Aujourd'hui was devoted to him – a step tantamount to his canonization as a major modernist voice.