Aim Csaire: Inventor of Souls [Hardcover]

Aim? C?saire is arguably the greatest Caribbean literary writer in history. Best known for his incendiary epic poem Notebook of a Return to My Native Land, C?saire reinvented black culture by conceiving 'n?gritude' as a dynamic and continuous process of self-creation.

In this essential new account of his life and work, Jane Hiddleston introduces readers to C?saire's unique poetic voice and to his role as a figurehead for intellectuals pursuing freedom and equality for black people. C?saire 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.

C?saire's extraordinary life reminds us that the much-needed revolt against oppression and subjugation canand shouldcome from within the establishment, as well as without.

Introduction


Chapter One
1930s Paris and the Cahier dun retour au pays natal: It is beautiful and good and legitimate to be n?gre


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


Chapter Three
Departmentalisation, Soleil cou coup? 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

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