RIP Aime Cesaire
deLYS
388 Posts
RIP Aime Cesaire, who passed April 17th this week...
my negritude is not a stone nor a deafness flung against the clamor of the day my negritude is not a white speck of dead water on the dead eye of the earth my negritude is neither tower nor cathedral it plunges into the red flesh of the soil it plunges into the blaxing flesh of the sky my negritude riddles with holes the dense affliction of its worthy patience.[/b]Aim?? C??saire, Martinique poet, has diedThe Associated PressPublished: April 17, 2008PARIS: The esteemed Martinique poet and politician Aim?? C??saire, a leading figure in the movement for black consciousness, died Thursday, the French president's office and a hospital said. He was 94.C??saire died in Fort-de-France on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, the hospital that was treating him said.C??saire was involved in the fight for French West Indian rights, and he also served as a lawmaker in the lower house of France's parliament for nearly 50 years. French President Nicolas Sarkozy successfully led a campaign last year to change the name of Martinique's airport in honor of C??saire.Sarkozy on Thursday praised C??saire as "a great poet" and a "great humanist.""As a free and independent spirit, throughout his whole life he embodied the fight for the recognition of his identity and the richness of his African roots," Sarkozy said. "Through his universal call for the respect of human dignity, consciousness and responsibility, he will remain a symbol of hope for all oppressed peoples."C??saire's 1950 "Discourse on Colonialism" has become a classic of French political literature and helped develop the concept of negritude, which urges blacks to cultivate pride in their heritage.Born June 26, 1913, in Basse-Pointe, Martinique, C??saire moved to mainland France for high school and university studies, and finished one of the country's most elite institutes, the Ecole Normale Superieure.He and Senegal's Leopold Sedar Senghor founded the journal "Black Student" in the 1930s, which gave birth to the idea of negritude.C??saire returned to Martinique during World War II and taught at a high school in Fort-de-France.C??saire served as mayor of Fort-de-France from 1945 to his retirement in 2001, except for a blip in 1983-84."I accomplished the work I had to do," C??saire said in his surprise announcement in 2000 that that he wouldn't seek another mayoral term.C??saire's essays included "Negro I am, Negro I Will Remain." His poems, written in French, included "Notes From a Return to the Native Land." He also wrote plays.
my negritude is not a stone nor a deafness flung against the clamor of the day my negritude is not a white speck of dead water on the dead eye of the earth my negritude is neither tower nor cathedral it plunges into the red flesh of the soil it plunges into the blaxing flesh of the sky my negritude riddles with holes the dense affliction of its worthy patience.[/b]Aim?? C??saire, Martinique poet, has diedThe Associated PressPublished: April 17, 2008PARIS: The esteemed Martinique poet and politician Aim?? C??saire, a leading figure in the movement for black consciousness, died Thursday, the French president's office and a hospital said. He was 94.C??saire died in Fort-de-France on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, the hospital that was treating him said.C??saire was involved in the fight for French West Indian rights, and he also served as a lawmaker in the lower house of France's parliament for nearly 50 years. French President Nicolas Sarkozy successfully led a campaign last year to change the name of Martinique's airport in honor of C??saire.Sarkozy on Thursday praised C??saire as "a great poet" and a "great humanist.""As a free and independent spirit, throughout his whole life he embodied the fight for the recognition of his identity and the richness of his African roots," Sarkozy said. "Through his universal call for the respect of human dignity, consciousness and responsibility, he will remain a symbol of hope for all oppressed peoples."C??saire's 1950 "Discourse on Colonialism" has become a classic of French political literature and helped develop the concept of negritude, which urges blacks to cultivate pride in their heritage.Born June 26, 1913, in Basse-Pointe, Martinique, C??saire moved to mainland France for high school and university studies, and finished one of the country's most elite institutes, the Ecole Normale Superieure.He and Senegal's Leopold Sedar Senghor founded the journal "Black Student" in the 1930s, which gave birth to the idea of negritude.C??saire returned to Martinique during World War II and taught at a high school in Fort-de-France.C??saire served as mayor of Fort-de-France from 1945 to his retirement in 2001, except for a blip in 1983-84."I accomplished the work I had to do," C??saire said in his surprise announcement in 2000 that that he wouldn't seek another mayoral term.C??saire's essays included "Negro I am, Negro I Will Remain." His poems, written in French, included "Notes From a Return to the Native Land." He also wrote plays.
Comments
no doubt.
I read lot of his work in college.
z"l.
I learned something.