SOURCE: "Tchicaya U Tam'si," in A Celebration of Black and African Writing, edited by Bruce King and Kolawole Ogungbesan, Oxford University Press, 1975, pp. 124-38.

In the essay below, Wake provides a thematic overview of Tchicaya's works, suggesting "ways in which one might gradually penetrate the mysteries" of his poetry.

Tchicaya U Tam'si is a major African poet, the most outstanding French-speaking African poet of the younger, or what one might perhaps call the post-Négritude, generation. His work has not, however, made the same impact on the black world as Senghor's, for reasons which are more closely related to the political evolution of Africa than to literary merit.

Tchicaya's poetry, like Senghor's, is deeply rooted in an African consciousness torn by colonialism (although unlike Senghor, Tchicaya is also profoundly affected by the memory of slavery). Their attitude of mind is, however, very different. Whereas Senghor knows who he...