Aime Cesaire

Aime Cesaire is the author of "A Tempest", and the Introduction offers a brief biography on him. He is born on June 25, 1915 in Basse-Pointe, Martinique to a dressmaker mother and a father who works as a local tax inspector. The Cesaires live close to the edge of rural poverty, and Aime attends Lycee Schoelcher in Fort-de-France at age eleven. He graduates in 1931 and enrolls in Lycee Louis-le-Grand to prepare for the exams to Ecole Normale Superieure. Cesaire, with Leo Frobenius and Leon-Gontran Damas, launches the journal L'Etudiant Noir, or The Black Student. In the early 1940s, he marries Suzanne Roussy and returns to his native land where he, his wife, Rene Menil, Lucie Thesee and Aristide Maugee launch a journal called Tropiques in 1941.

Cesaire promotes a vision of freedom that depends on modernism, a deep appreciation for the pre-colonial African modes of thought and practice, as well...