SOURCE: "Aimé Césaire on Aimé Césaire: A Complementary Reading of 'Crevasses' (from Moi, laminaire …)," in L'Esprit Créateur, Vol. XXXII, No. 1, Spring 1992, pp. 41-53.

In the following essay, Ngaté examines Césaire's views as a literary critic, as expressed in Césaire's introductions and prefaces to other author's works.

The Césaire I am interested in here is not only the man who had very calmly but straightforwardly stated in 1956, in his Lettre à Maurice Thorez, that "aucune doctrine ne vaut que repensée par nous, que repensée pour nous, que convertie à nous" [emphasis added]; he is also, for this occasion again, Aimé Césaire in the role of informed and sensitive reader-and-critic of his own work and that of others. Much of great value has already been written about him as a committed and inspiring writer, a charismatic political figure and even (if less so...