SOURCE: Hawkins, Hunt. “Aimé Césaire's Lesson about Decolonization in La tragédie du roi Christophe.” CLA Journal 30, no. 2 (December 1986): 144-53.

In the following essay, Hawkins addresses Césaire's skepticism regarding decolonization and the actions of King Christophe as portrayed in The Tragedy of King Christophe.

In his speech “L'homme de culture et ses responsabilités” delivered to the Second International Congress of Black Writers and Artists held in Rome in 1959, Aimé Césaire, the Martinican poet-statesman, proposed a number of tasks for his audience. One duty was “de rétablir la double continuité rompue par le colonialisme, la continuité d'avec le monde, la continuité d'avec nous-mêmes.”¹ Since colonialism had balkanized the African people in space and interrupted African history in time, the black artist was obliged to recover the precolonial past.

It is interesting to note, though, that Césaire's plays do not follow his prescription...