La littérature - told you this blog was pretentious :P

Aimé Césaire.

In high school, our French teacher gave us an article to read about Aimé Césaire called "Nègre je suis, nègre je resterai". It was such an enlightening article and I subsequently went on to read number of his poems and journals (at snail's pace obviously because my French has deteriorated since school!). He, like Steve Biko, Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael, was an advocate of black consciousness or what is known in French as 'Négritude'. I've posted a link to a journal below which translates one of his discourses on colonialism. It's a very interesting read and even if you might be frightened of the idea of black consciousness, just read what he had to say. He is incredibly intelligent and expresses himself so clearly. Something I so badly want to be able to do. Anyway, happy reading folks :)

http://www.rlwclarke.net/Theory/SourcesPrimary/CesaireDiscourseonColonialism.pdf