Aimé Césaire

(1913 - 2008)

A Martinican-born writer and politician, Aimé Cé­saire was a foundational member of the Negritude literary movement of the 1930s, which sought to protest French colonial rule of Africa and highlight African diasporic culture. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote of his work that “a Césaire poem explodes and whirls about itself like a rocket, suns burst forth whirling and exploding like new suns—it perpetually surpasses itself.” Cé­saire served as mayor of Fort-de-France before leaving the Communist Party to create his own, the Martinique Independent Revolution Party.