#aimé césaire

[obsessioncollector]

Banner displayed at the student protests for Palestine at the University of Toronto, posted by assistant professor Esmat Elhalaby on Twitter. The central figure on the bannet is an imitation of Paul Klee's Angelus Novus, famously discussed in Walter Benjamin's Theses on the Philosophy of History. The accompanying text— reading "The only thing in the world worth beginning... the end of the world, of course!"—is from Aimé Césaire's Notebook of a Return to the Native Land.

You can read the Benjamin essay and see the original Klee work here. PDF of the Césaire book here.

[duxuebing]

Photography by Xuebing Du

Instagram: xuebing.du

[namedvesta]

Aimé Césaire, from Lagoonal Calendar.

[lillyli-74]

I have made a pact with the night, I have felt it softly healing me.

~Aimé Césaire

[majestativa]

I’ve dreamed all the vices of my blood.

— Aimé Césaire, Anthology of Contemporary French Poetry, transl by Graham Dunstan Martin, (1971)

[chamerionwrites]

Aimé Césaire saying that colonization works to decivilize the colonizer truly lives in my head rent-free

[yannsummerss]

[diaryofaphilosopher]

First we must study how colonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in the true sense of the word, to degrade him, to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race hatred, and moral relativism; and we must show that each time a head is cut off or an eye put out in Vietnam and in France they accept the fact, each time a little girl is raped and in France they accept the fact, each time a Madagascan is tortured and in France they accept the fact, civilization acquires another dead weight, a universal regression takes places, a gangrene sets in, a center of infection begins to spread; and that at the end of all these treaties that have been violated, all these lies that have been propagated, all these punitive expeditions that have been tolerated, all these prisoners who have been tied up and "interrogated," all these patriots who have been tortured, at the end of all the racial pride that has been encouraged, all the boastfulness that has been displayed, a poison has been distilled into the veins of Europe and, slowly but surely, the continent proceeds toward savagery.

— Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism.

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[petit-atelier-de-poesie]

NOTE DE LECTURE : Cahier d'une retour au pays natal. Aimé Césaire. 1937/1949. Edition 2000

Ce petit bouquin est d'une telle puissance. Il m'a été offert par ma nièce, me tirant des larmes en déchirant le papier cadeau, d'abord des larmes de gratitude et puis pendant la lecture des larmes de nostalgie et de compassion.  Ce poème en prose est tellement d'actualité. Aimé Césaire, poète de la "négritude", est tellement moderne, c'est un manifeste prenant la voix de ses origines noires, ainsi que celle de tous les opprimés, et il y en a tant encore.  Publié en 1939, il est tout de suite reconnu par André Breton qui en assure la préface pour l'édition de 1947. L'écriture est délicate et forte, en vers libres, car il faut bien prendre la liberté là où elle se trouve encore. Et c'est un chant, une incantation et une prière, que nous offre le poète. On y entend la douleur et la colère, l'encouragement et l'espoir. Avec lui, j'entends les chants des peuples africains sur les plantations et les plages, et les chants des esclaves sur les navires négriers, et je me laisse emporter par l'éternel retour au pays natal et la présence toujours vive de notre dignité commune.

[didierleclair]

“A man screaming is not a dancing bear. Life is not a spectacle.” ― Aime Cesaire, Notebook of a Return to the Native Land

[elle-mood]

"My ear to the ground,

I heard Tomorrow pass."

~ Aimé Césaire

[duxuebing]

Photography by Xuebing Du

Instagram: xuebing.du

[mimosita]

“What am I driving at? At this idea: that no one colonizes innocently, that no one colonizes with impunity either; that a nation which colonizes, that a civilization which justifies colonization—and therefore force—is already a sick civilization, a civilization which is morally diseased, which irresistibly, progressing from one consequence to another, one denial to another, calls for its Hitler, I mean its punishment.”

― Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism

[genevieveetguy]

And the Dogs Were Quiet (Et les chiens se taisaient), Sarah Maldoror (1978)

[majestativa]

Sensual earth.

— Aimé Césaire, Anthology of Contemporary French Poetry, transl by Graham Dunstan Martin, (1971)

[anaalnathrakhs]

Dorsale Bossale, un poème d'Aimé Césaire, lu en français par moi-même à l'occasion de @spyld (Speak Your Language Day)

L'original | I haven't found a translation