His writings during this period reflect his passion for civic and social engagement. He wrote "Discours sur le colonialisme" ("Discourse on Colonialism"), a denunciation of European colonial racism, decadence, and hypocrisy that was republished in the French review "Présence Africaine" in 1955 (English translation 1957). In 1960, he published "Toussaint Louverture", based on the life of the Haitian revolutionary. In 1969, he published the first version of "Une Tempête", a radical adaptation of Shakespeare's play "The Tempest" for a black audience.