Aimé Césaire

訃報については、http://d.hatena.ne.jp/yskszk/20080417#p2にて知る。
恥を晒せば、セゼールのものは全然読んでいない。
以下、International Herald Tribuneに掲載されたAssociated Pressの記事；

Aimé Césaire, Martinique poet, has died

The Associated Press
Thursday, April 17, 2008

PARIS: The esteemed Martinique poet and politician Aimé Césaire, a leading figure in the movement for black consciousness, died Thursday, the French president's office and a hospital said. He was 94.

Césaire died in Fort-de-France on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, the hospital that was treating him said.

Césaire was involved in the fight for French West Indian rights, and he also served as a lawmaker in the lower house of France's parliament for nearly 50 years. French President Nicolas Sarkozy successfully led a campaign last year to change the name of Martinique's airport in honor of Césaire.

Sarkozy on Thursday praised Césaire as "a great poet" and a "great humanist."

"As a free and independent spirit, throughout his whole life he embodied the fight for the recognition of his identity and the richness of his African roots," Sarkozy said. "Through his universal call for the respect of human dignity, consciousness and responsibility, he will remain a symbol of hope for all oppressed peoples."

Césaire's 1950 "Discourse on Colonialism" has become a classic of French political literature and helped develop the concept of negritude, which urges blacks to cultivate pride in their heritage.

Born June 26, 1913, in Basse-Pointe, Martinique, Césaire moved to mainland France for high school and university studies, and finished one of the country's most elite institutes, the Ecole Normale Superieure.

He and Senegal's Leopold Sedar Senghor founded the journal "Black Student" in the 1930s, which gave birth to the idea of negritude.

Césaire returned to Martinique during World War II and taught at a high school in Fort-de-France.

Césaire served as mayor of Fort-de-France from 1945 to his retirement in 2001, except for a blip in 1983-84.

"I accomplished the work I had to do," Césaire said in his surprise announcement in 2000 that that he wouldn't seek another mayoral term.

Césaire's essays included "Negro I am, Negro I Will Remain." His poems, written in French, included "Notes From a Return to the Native Land." He also wrote plays.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/17/europe/EU-GEN-France-Obit-Cesaire.php

ポール・オースターはTwentieth-Century French Poetryという詞華集を出しているが、その序文からメモしておく；

（前略）第二世代のシュルレアリストのなかで――あるいはその方法にインスピレーションを見出した同時代の作家のなかで――もっとも重要な詩人がセゼールである。フランスで真っ先に認められた黒人文学者であるセゼールは、黒人文化・黒人の意識の独自性と威厳を主張する〈ネグリチュード（黒人性）運動〉の創始者でもある。マルティニクに生まれ、三〇年代末にブルトンに発見され擁護された。南アフリカの詩人マジン・クネーネが書いているように、「セゼールにとってシュルレアリスムとは、合法化されたブルジョワ的価値観を強化する言語の抑圧を打ち砕くための論理的道具にほかならなかった。言語のパターンを破壊することが、彼の場合、植民地主義をはじめとするあらゆる圧制の破壊をめざす個人的欲求と重なりあったのである」。セゼールの詩は、おそらくフランスのシュルレアリストたちの作品以上に生き生きと、政治的、芸術的革命という二重の渇望をわかちがたく結びつけつつ、それに実体を与えている。（『空腹の技法』*1、pp.285-286）

空腹の技法 (新潮文庫)

*1:See http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20080204/1202096588