In 1932, at the very peak of French colonialism, a group of Martiniquan students at the Sorbonne in Paris established a Caribbean Surrealist Group, and published a single issue of a journal called Legitime Defense. Immediately banned by the authorities, it passed almost unnoticed at the time. Yet its publication began a remarkable series of debates and collaborations between surrealism and Caribbean intellectuals that had a profound impact on the struggle for cultural identity. In the next two decades these exchanges greatly influenced the evolution of the concept of negritude, initiated revolution in Haiti in 1946, and crucially affected the development of surrealism itself. This fascinating book explores the nature of this relationship between black anti-colonialist movements in the Caribbean and the most radical of the European avant-gardes, and presents a series of key texts which reveal its complexity - most of them never before translated into English. Included are Rene Menil's subtle philosophical essays and the fierce polemics of Aime and Suzanne Cesaire that had a great influence on Franz Fanon, appreciations of surrealism by Haitian writers, lyrical evocations of the Caribbean by Andre Breton and Andre Masson, and rich explorations of Haiti and voodoo religion by Pierre Mabille and Michel Leiris.
In 1932, at the very peak of French colonialism, a group of Martiniquan students at the Sorbonne in Paris established a Caribbean Surrealist Group, and published a single issue of a journal called Legitime Defense. Immediately banned by the authorities, it passed almost unnoticed at the time. Yet its publication began a remarkable series of debates and collaborations between surrealism and Caribbean intellectuals that had a profound impact on the struggle for cultural identity. In the next two decades these exchanges greatly influenced the evolution of the concept of negritude, initiated revolution in Haiti in 1946, and crucially affected the development of surrealism itself. This fascinating book explores the nature of this relationship between black anti-colonialist movements in the Caribbean and the most radical of the European avant-gardes, and presents a series of key texts which reveal its complexity - most of them never before translated into English. Included are Rene Menil's subtle philosophical essays and the fierce polemics of Aime and Suzanne Cesaire that had a great influence on Franz Fanon, appreciations of surrealism by Haitian writers, lyrical evocations of the Caribbean by Andre Breton and Andre Masson, and rich explorations of Haiti and voodoo religion by Pierre Mabille and Michel Leiris.
"Will transform how surrealism is understood." -Professor Paul Gilroy
The Surrealists' absolute refusal to accommodate themselves to the
values of colonial Europe aroused the admiration of poets and
intellectuals in the French-speaking Caribbean who were leading the
resistance to political and cultural suppression. Their encounters
are brought vividly to life in these texts by writers whose candid
and often fierce debates ... are no less relevant today than they
were then.
*Professor Dawn Ades, University of Essex*
Refusal of the Shadow offers a powerful reminder that there is
still much to learn about the complexities of colonialism and its
political and cultural negation. There can be no doubt that this
invaluable anthology will transform how surrealism is understood.
Beyond that, it commands attention for placing Caribbean
sensibilities back at the centre of European accounts of
modernism's unfolding.
*Professor Paul Gilroy, author of The Black Atlantic*
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