Cesaire, Aime-Fernand-David

▪ 2009

      Martinican poet, playwright, and politician

born June 26, 1913, Basse-Pointe, Martinique

died April 17, 2008, Fort-de-France, Martinique

was cofounder of Negritude, an influential movement to restore the cultural identity of black Africans; he was often credited with having coined the movement's name. Césaire left Martinique in 1931 to be educated in Paris, where he became associated with Léopold Sédar Senghor (later president of Senegal) and others involved in the Negritude movement. In 1939 Césaire returned to Martinique and engaged in political action supporting the decolonization of the French colonies of Africa. In 1945 he became mayor of Fort-de-France, the capital of Martinique, and he retained that position until 2001 (he was briefly out of office in 1983–84). In 1946 Césaire became a deputy for Martinique in the French National Assembly, where he remained until 1993. Viewing the plight of the blacks as only one facet of the proletarian struggle, he joined (1946) the Communist Party, but he quit a decade later and formed the Martinique Progressive Party. As a poet, Césaire found that Surrealism, which freed him from the traditional forms of language, was the best expression for his convictions. He voiced his ardent rebellion in a French that was heavy with African imagery. In the fiery poems of Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (1939, rev. ed. 1956; Return to My Native Land, 1947) and Soleil cou-coupé (1948), he lashed out against the oppressors. Césaire later turned to the theatre, discarding Negritude for black militancy. His tragedies are vehemently political, notably La Tragédie du Roi Christophe (1963; The Tragedy of King Christophe), a drama of 19th-century Haiti; Une Saison au Congo (1966; A Season in the Congo), an epic look at the political career and assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba; and Une Tempête (1969; The Tempest, 1985), an adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest.

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