Cadastre

by Aimé Césaire

English, French

Genres: Poetry

159 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Martinique-born poet, playwright, and politician Aimé Fernand Césaire contributed to the development of the concept of negritude; his primarily surrealist works include The Miracle Weapons (1946) and A Tempest (1969).

A francophone author of African descent. His books of include Lost Body, with illustrations by Pablo Picasso, Aimé Césaire: The Collected Poetry, and Return to My Native Land. He is also the author of Discourse on Colonialism, a book of essays which has become a classic text of French political literature and helped establish the literary and ideological movement Negritude, a term Césaire defined as “the simple recognition of the fact that one is black, the acceptance of this fact and of our destiny as blacks, of our history and culture.” Césaire is a recipient of the International Nâzim Hikmet Poetry Award, the second winner in its history. He served as Mayor of Fort-de-France as a member of the Communist Party, and later quit the party to establish his Martinique Independent Revolution Party. He was deeply involved in the struggle for French West Indian rights and served as the deputy to the French National Assembly. He retired from politics in 1993. Césaire died in Martinique.

Reviews

[Sparrow .]

Césaire was the Malcolm X of Martinique -- but instead of getting shot, he was elected mayor of the capital city, Fort-au-France, and lived to be 94. In fact Césaire died while I was reading this book, on April 17, 2008. He was one of the founders of the négritude movement, which deeply influenced "Black Power;" also he was a mentor to Frantz Fanon. Césaire's great political work was "Discours sur le colonialisme" ["Discourse on Colonialism"]. But mostly he was a poet. Cadastre was published in 1961; I have a first edition.

Like most Americans, I think of political poetry as nagging, repetitive sermons. Césaire was a revolutionary of diction as well as action. His writing is still radical, still digs new canals in your thinking.

Here is my translation of the first few lines of "La loi est nue" ("The Law Is Naked"):

Winged berries, I marched on the roaring heart of excellent
spring
(had I never kidnapped another woman?)
as a long cry and under my milk-gulp
as one soil escaping wounded, reptilian between the teeth of
the forest

clean, gushing,
I'm here
in the backwaters

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

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