Aimé Césaire is arguably the greatest Caribbean literary writer in history. Best known for his incendiary epic poem Notebook of a Return to My Native Land, Césaire reinvented black culture by conceiving 'négritude' as a dynamic and continuous process of self-creation.

In this essential new account of his life and work, Jane Hiddleston introduces readers to Césaire's unique poetic voice and to his role as a figurehead for intellectuals pursuing freedom and equality for black people. Césaire was deeply immersed in the political life of his native Martinique for over fifty years: as Mayor of Fort-de-France and Deputy at the French National Assembly, he called for the liberation of oppressed people at home and abroad, while celebrating black creativity and self-invention to resist a history of racism.

Césaire's extraordinary life reminds us that the much-needed revolt against oppression and subjugation can—and should—come from within the establishment, as well as without.

“This groundbreaking volume is an erudite illumination of Césaire: from Negritude to his call for the reinvention of black culture and identity; from the eruptive challenge of his poetry as revolt to his engagement with political activism.”
Adlai Murdoch, Penn State University

“Jane Hiddleston succeeds in rendering a difficult writer eminently readable, and she moves effortlessly between her author’s better known political positions and his commitment to poetry, the theatre and the essay.”
A. James Arnold, University of Virginia

Jane Hiddleston is Professor of Literatures in French at the University of Oxford.