1913 b. June 26th in Basse Pointe, Martinique as Aime Fernand David Cesaire. Martinican poet, playwright, and politician.
One of the most influential authors from the French-speaking Caribbean. He formulated with Leopold Senghor and Leon Gontian Damas the concept and movement of negritude, defined as "affirmation that one is black and proud of it". Cesaire's thoughts about restoring the cultural identity of black Africans were first fully expressed in ''Cahier d'un retour au pays natal'' (Notebook of the Return to My Native Land), a mixture of poetry and poetic prose. The work celebrated the ancestral homelands of Africa and the Caribbean. It was completed in 1939 but not published in full form until 1947. 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. 1935 In Paris created, together with Leopold Sedar Senghor -> and Leon Damas ->, the literary review L'Etudiant Noir (The Black Student). 1937 m. fellow Martinican student Suzanne Roussi. 1939 They returned to Martinique with their young son. Completed Notebook of the Return to My Native Land (excerpt ->). 1941 visited by Andre Breton, Jacqueline Lamba and Wifredo Lam when they stopped in Martinique while fleeing Vichy France to the US. Together with his wife and and the help of other Martinican intellectuals such as Rene Menil and Aristide Maugee founded the literary review 'Tropiques''. 1945 Mayor of Fort de France. 1947 Andre Breton wrote the introduction to Cahier d'un retour au pays natal. 1993? Cesaire retired from politics. 1994? Annie Le Brun writes Pour Aime Cesaire. 2008? d. April in Fort-de-France. Poetry and Political Imagination ->. See here -> and also -> and Criticism ->. See Franklin Rosemont's introduction to Andre Breton's book Martinique: Snake Charmer ->. See Timeline.