Aime Cesaire - Inventor of Souls

Aimé Césaire is arguably the greatest Caribbean literary writer in history. Best known for his incendiary epic poem Notebook of a Return to My Native Land, Césaire reinvented black culture by conceiving 'négritude' as a dynamic and continuous process of self-creation.
In this essential new account of his life and work, Jane Hiddleston introduces readers to Césaire's unique poetic voice and to his role as a figurehead for intellectuals pursuing freedom and equality for black people. Césaire was deeply immersed in the political life of his native Martinique for over fifty years: as Mayor of Fort-de-France and Deputy at the French National Assembly, he called for the liberation of oppressed people at home and abroad, while celebrating black creativity and self-invention to resist a history of racism.
Césaire's extraordinary life reminds us that the much-needed revolt against oppression and subjugation can-and should-come from within the establishment, as well as without.

Sommario

Introduction

Chapter One
1930s Paris and the Cahier d'un retour au pays natal: 'It is beautiful and good and legitimate to be nègre'

Chapter Two
Wartime Martinique, Tropiques, and Les Armes miraculeuses: 'Open the windows. Air. Air'

Chapter Three
Departmentalisation, Soleil cou coupé and Corps perdu: 'I Shall Command the Islands to Exist'

Chapter Four
The Political Upheavals of the 1950s: 'History I tell of the awakening of Africa'

Chapter Five
The Theatre of Decolonisation: 'One does not invent a tree, one plants it'

Chapter Six
Political and Poetic Disillusionment: 'I inhabit a Sacred Wound'

Afterword

Info autore

Jane Hiddleston is Professor of Literatures in French at the University of Oxford.

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Jane Hiddleston, Hiddleston Jane
• Editore: Wiley, John and Sons Ltd
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Tascabile
• Pubblicazione: 05.02.2025
• EAN: 9781509549788
• ISBN: 978-1-5095-4978-8
• Pagine: 304
• Serie: Black Lives
• Categorie: Saggistica > Filosofia, religione > Altro; Scienze sociali, diritto, economia > Scienze politiche > Scienze politiche e cittadinanza attiva; Martinique, PHILOSOPHY / Social, PHILOSOPHY / Political, LITERARY CRITICISM / European / French, LITERARY CRITICISM / Caribbean & Latin American, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, Politics & government, social and political philosophy, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000