Aimé Césaire, poet, playwright, essayist, teacher and politician, and unarguably Martinique’s most prominent citizen until his death in April 2008, is famous for his surrealist poetry, representing a harsh anti-colonial stance, and the symbolic return to his African roots as manifested in his writings of the 1930s and 1940s. His allegorical plays are concerned with colonialism’s legacy, as represented, for example, through the case of Haiti, whilst his essays examined topics such as slavery and its abolition, well before such public and political discourse became the norm in France. His repeated condemnation of French colonialism, however, did not prevent him from having a long-lasting political career, which beg

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First published 25 March 2008 ; revised 18 April 2008

Citation: Jahn, Jennifer. "Aimé Césaire". The Literary Encyclopedia. 25 March 2008.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5579, accessed 21 November 2009.]