SOURCE: Breton, André. “A Great Black Poet: Aimé Césaire.” In Refusal of the Shadow: Surrealism and the Caribbean, edited by Michael Richardson and translated by Krzysztof Fijalkowski and Michael Richardson, pp. 191-98. London: Verso, 1996.

In the following essay, Breton briefly recounts his relationship with Césaire, also expressing his admiration for the poet as a truly significant and powerful black poet.

April 1941. The view was blocked by the hulk of a ship, sealed with madrepore to the sand of the beach and probed by the waves (at least the little children could not have dreamed of a better place to frolic all day long), which by its very fixity gave no respite to the exasperation of only being able to move a few measured paces, between two bayonets: the Lazaret concentration camp, in Fort-de-France harbour. Released after a few days, with what avidity did I plunge into...