The poet, novelist and essayist Édouard Glissant, one of the most significant writers of the French Caribbean, died early this month at the age of eighty-two years, according to media reports. Born on the island of Martinique, Glissant developed the theory of “créolisation” and his novels, poems and essays addressed issues of slavery, racism and colonialism and postcolonial identity.
“He died this morning. he was in a critical condition for some time, but we worked together until the end, “said Emmanuelle Collas, editorial director of Gilead (from Paris), which published part of the writer’s work.
Glissant was author of a vast work of poetry and narrative. His essays are collected in Soleil de la conscience (1956), L’intention poétique (1969), Poétique of Relation (1990), Discours de Glendon (1990), Falkner, Mississippi (1996), Introduction à une poétique du Divers (1996), Traité du Tout-Monde (1997), Mémoires des esclavage (2007) and Philosophie de la relation (2009).
His work is notable for its interest, both in fiction and in life for the meaning of West Indian identity, the postcolonial condition, the relationship between the Caribbean area and its history, issues of language, the links between slavery and the Caribbean and Latin America, among other important topics. He was undoubtedly one of the living representatives who came to be a symbol to a whole generation of Caribbean writers and made then rethink the Caribbean and its rich cultural diversity.
Born in Sainte-Marie, Martinique, on September 21,1928. He studied ethnology at the Museum of Man in Paris and philosophy at the Sorbonne. Throughout his life he continued to promote solidarity among peoples and respect for diversity. He also emphasized the necessity to maintain a strong cultural activism and was part of the circles for literary and artistic creativity within the black emancipation movement in the 50’s and was very active participant in the protests of the French left.
His activism led to artistic reflections noted that “the Caribbean is a cultural reality” open “always to other cultures” and reinforcing the idea that “In Cuba a blacks, whites and a native of Guadeloupe or Haiti could participate in this identity “, according to what Glissant himself wrote. That spirit led him to generate an artistic work somewhere between the poetic and political, in which the metaphorical images and legends live with the theoretical.
He was an active and militant anti-colonialist who opposed the war in Algeria. He was expelled from the French Antilles for promoting their ideas of independence and was placed under house arrest in Metropolitan France.
In 1958, his novel The Lézarde earned him the Renaudot award which made this intellectual internationally known. His work paved the way for other writers develop their work relating to Creoles, like Patrick Chamoiseau, who won the Prix Goncourt in 1992.
Based in the French capital since the forties, he returned to his homeland in the mid-sixties. He founded the Institute for Studies of Martinique and the magazine Acoma . He was director of Unesco’s courier between 1982 and 1988 as well as the Center for French and Francophone Studies at the University of Louisiana. Since 1995 he worked as a Distinguished Professor at the University of New York City.
Because of his enormous intellectual contribution, Glissant received numerous awards, including doctorates Honoris Causa from the University of York (Toronto, Canada) and the University of the West Indies in St. Augusthine (Trinidad and Tobago), and the distinction Laurea ad honorem from the University of Bologna (2004).
Édouard Glissant lived his last years in Paris, New York and Martinique. Since 1995 he taught French literature at the University CUNY, New York. In 2007 he founded in Paris the Institut du Tout-Monde, designed to implement humanitarian principles and promoting the dissemination of the diversity of peoples.