Notebook of a Return to the Native Land (Wesleyan Poetry Series)
"Aimé Césaire's brooding exploration of Negritude bristles with the energetic, unique qualities of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" . . .  [Cesaire's] protean lyric, filled with historical allusions, serves to exorcise individual and collective self-hatreds engendered by the psychological trauma of slavery and its aftermath." —San Francisco Chronicle“The greatest living poet in the French language."—American Book Review“One of the most powerful French poets of the century.”—New York Times Book Review“Martinique poet Aime Cesaire is one of the few pure surrealists alive today. By this I mean that his work has never compromised its wild universe of double meanings, stretched syntax, and unexpected imagery. This long poem was written at the end of World War II and became an anthem for many blacks around the world. Eshleman and Smith have revised their original 1983 translations and given it additional power by presenting Cesaire’s unique voice as testament to a world reduced in size by catastrophic events.” —Bloomsbury Review