Preface

Summary

In this account of Aimé Césaire's dual career as verbal artist and statesman I have pursued a flexible chronological scheme. The order of publication of his major literary works (chiefly collections of poems and plays) has determined the sequence, no less than the rubrics, of the chapters. I have sought to present and describe these key compositions in their historical and biographical context. The term “biographical,” however, requires stringent qualification: my focus is predominantly on the life of the mind – the intellectual and aesthetic evolution of the poet as I attempt to sketch it. Literary texts are therefore very much in the foreground of my account, with the political and socio-cultural extensions providing a backdrop for the discussion of the art and ideology. As ultimate justification for this dominant focus, I can do no better than to quote Césaire's own words on the subject of a putative “biography”:

I am in the habit of saying that I have no biography. And in truth, in reading my poems, the reader will know about me all that is worth knowing, and certainly more than I know myself.

In view of my concentration on the literary æuvre I have relied on frequent citation of the original French texts, accompanied, except in the case of prose excerpts, by English renditions. At stake in this bilingual mode of presentation is a principle I regard as paramount in any serious attempt to characterize the accomplishment and growth of a verbal artist: the obligation to make his actual words accessible to the reader.