In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Ars poetica, ars politica:The Double Life of Aimé Césaire: Editorial Introduction
  • H. Adlai Murdoch, Guest Editor

The only occasion on which I can claim to have met Aimé Césaire will forever remain indelibly etched in my memory. It was during the conference "Self Images, Mirror Images," held in Fort-de France, Martinique, 23-26 November 2005. On the second day of the conference, some sessions were held at the Hôtel de Ville, and indeed a panel was in session as the clock approached noon in the auditorium when someone rushed in and whispered a few words in the ear of the panel chair. The latter immediately stood up and interrupted the presenter mid-sentence by saying, "Excusez-moi, mais M. Césaire est sur le point de descendre" 'Pardon me, but Mr. Césaire is about to come down.' Everyone rushed out into the lobby, awaiting Césaire's departure after his daily office hours, and after five or six minutes he appeared on the landing, flanked and supported by two young helpers. The room immediately erupted into spontaneous and prolonged applause, as the great man descended the staircase and proceeded, slowly and deliberately, to shake hands with all and sundry. The moment was alive with indescribable emotion; some people were literally crying, and many of those who were not had tears in their eyes (myself included). For many of us, again, like me, this was and would be the only occasion to see this living legend of French/Caribbean letters, already a nonagenarian, in the flesh. Photos were taken to preserve the moment, and I for one was surprised to see how diminutive and soft-spoken he was. When my turn came, I could only mumble something along the lines of, "Maître, un grand honneur" 'Sir, this is a great honor,' or some such forgettable phrase. But never to be forgotten are two key sentences from the brief address he gave, in which he graciously thanked us for coming all that way and taking the time and trouble to see him. He then continued, "We live in perilous times. And it is now that it is most important for you to affirm your cultural identity." And with that, he was gone. Two years and four months later, he would leave us for good.

I have recounted this episode because it seemed perhaps the most effective way of demonstrating the high regard, if not the veneration, in which Césaire was and is held by scholars, ideologues, and activists from the Caribbean and, indeed, around the world. This was the case throughout the triumphs, paradoxes, and [End Page 1] contradictions that marked the double trajectory of his near half-century in public life, beginning not with the publication of the Cahier in 1939 but with his campaign in 1944-45 on the French Communist Party ticket for mayor of Fort-de-France and for the new French National Assembly. Césaire won by a landslide in the 27 May 1945 election, and would remain mayor of Fort-de-France for nearly fifty-six years, until 2001, and represent Martinique as a deputy in France's National Assembly until 1956 and again from 1958 until 1993.

From his first foray into the French metropolitan center, to attend the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and then the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Césaire's primary goal was to find an effective framework to articulate the principle of pride in black history and black cultural identity. Now if in Paris Césaire found both poetry and Africa (he confessed that until he left Martinique in 1931, he did not know what it meant to be black), the limited perspective afforded by growing up in a majority black rural community on the colonial periphery in the predigital, or indeed the precommunication age, can hardly be overstated. Another way to contextualize this awakening is to recall Edouard Glissant's adage, somewhat après la lettre, that most Antillais discover their antillanité in France; that is, when confronted with the searing depredations of rampant, unvarnished and unharnessed racism, or, more simply, with the novelty of being a minority for the first...

pdf

Share