Aimé Fernand David Césaire was a Francophone and French poet, author and politician from Martinique. He was "one of the founders of the négritude movement in Francophone literature". He wrote such works as Une Tempête, a response to Shakespeare's play The Tempest, and Discours sur le colonialisme (Discourse on Colonialism), an essay describing the strife between the colonizers and the colonized. His works have been translated into many languages.
Background
Césaire was born on June 25, 1913, in Basse Pointe, Martinique, a community located on the northern part of the island. His father, Fernand, was an accountant working with the Department of Revenue; his mother, Marie, was a seamstress and homemaker. He has described his childhood as one of extreme poverty and hunger, living in a wooden house infested with rats and bad odors.
Education
He studied in Martinique and graduated from the Lycée Schoelcher. At the age of 18, he obtained a scholarship and left for France, where he spent the next eight years. On his arrival in Paris he studied at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. He eventually went to the École Normale Supérieure and the Sorbonne, where he obtained the equivalent of a master's degree in literature.
Career
While Césaire was in Paris, he co-founded a student publication entitled L'etudiant noire (The Black Student) along with Leopold Sedar Senghor, former president of Senegal, and Leon-Goutran Damas. It was from his position as editor of this publication that he helped to launch Négritude, one of the most significant literary movements within black African and Caribbean literature. Césaire has defined Négritude as "a point of departure. It is the affirmation that one is black and proud of it". As a cultural and intellectual movement, Négritude is similar to the concept of Afrocentrism, as defined and understood in the United States. It rejects the aesthetic, cultural, and ideological values of the Western world and encourages a return to the original values of native African cultures and civilization. The Négritude movement, also influenced by modemism, adopted the values that Césaire had outlined in the poem "Return to My Native Land" (1939), where he rejected Western values and traditions and embraced African ones.
When Césaire returned to Martinique, he found a job teaching at the Lycée of Fort-the-France from 1940 to 1945. It was at the Lycée that he taught the noted political philosopher Frantz Fanon, who was strongly influenced by Césaire's ideas.
An individual of deeply rooted political beliefs and convictions, Césaire entered the political arena of Martinique in 1945 and served his island in several capacities throughout most of this century. First, he was a delegate to two French Constitutional Assemblies (1945-1946), mayor of Fort-the-France (1945-1993); and deputy for Martinique in the French National Assembly (1946-1993). During his initial years in politics, he was a member of the French Communist Party. However, in 1956 he became disillusioned with the politics of the party and resigned; two years later he was one of the founders of the Progressive Party of Martinique.
Achievements
Personality
Césaire's style has a distinct and unique character. His verses and prose are characterized by an abundance of words. For him, poetry is "the reconquest of the self by the self" (Melsan 1997, 4). Words and imagery, rather than arms or insurrection, are the essential instruments for achieving that conquest. He uses metaphors extensively, and his selection of words is heavily influenced by the surreal and the fantastic. It is important to note that one of his first books con-tained illustrations by Pablo Picasso and that he has readily accepted the influence of surrealism in his literary work, often drawing on the irrational and fantastic. His work is filled with powerful messages and meanings that through irony and sarcasm undermine the mainstream ideology of the establishment in favor of indigenous African values.
Quotes from others about the person
Critic Thomas Wiloch points to a clear contradiction in Césaire's legacy. Although the politics of his poetry and literary work were radical, the pragmatic side of Césaire was far more moderate. Despite the nationalist themes in his poetry and his tacit rejection of the colonial forces of the dominant culture of France, he opposed the independence of Martinique and instead advocated that the island become an overseas French department under the protectorate of France. The mechanics of overseas department status are, in fact, colonial in nature. Even when his literary work spoke loudly of embracing black cultural forces, he always wrote in French rather than in his native Creole.
Connections
Césaire married fellow Martinican student Suzanne Roussi in 1937. Together they moved back to Martinique in 1939 with their young son.