Conscience noire et anticoloniale dans lʼoeuvre littéraire de Léon-Gontran Damas

Abstract

This study thematises a surge of Black identity and anti-colonial consciousness in the literary work of one of the founding fathers of the Afro-Caribbean letters, Léon-Gontran Damas (1912–1978), whose works are still much less known than those of the poet-president, Senghor or the poet-mayor of Fort-de-France, Aimé Césaire. Starting from the very first cry of Black revolt against the French presence in the colonies (Pigments, 1937), we will try to explain the originality of this multi-form writer whose positions against the assimilationist policies of the Third Republic and the harmful consequences of the colonial enterprise are more virulent than those which can be read in Césairo-Senghorian poetry.