Aimé Césaire’s
Une Saison au Congo[
A Season in the Congo] premiered in Brussels (Anderlecht) on the anniversary of Patrice Lumumba’s assassination, 17 January 1967. Rudi Barnet, a local theatre maker, directed the low-budget production with an impromptu troupe of trained and untrained actors who made up the collaborative Théâtre Vivant at Anderlecht’s Cultural Centre. The play’s short run, while supported by an international committee of famous authors and artists (including Hugo Claus, Maurice Béjart, Jean Paul Sartre, Arthur Adamov, and François Truffaut), was met with loud resistance and protest from far-right demonstrators, ex colonials, and Maoist sympathizers (Barnet). Lumumba had been made into a controversial figure by incessant diabolization in Belgian and…
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Citation: Defraeye, Piet. "Une saison au Congo". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 July 2008; last revised 26 September 2023. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=14501, accessed 12 December 2024.]