Il Tolomeo Rivista di studi postcoloniali | A Postcolonial Studies Journal | Journal d’études postcoloniales | Revista de estudos pós-coloniais

Journal | Il Tolomeo
Journal issue | 17 | 2015
Research Article | Damas, météore

Damas, météore

Abstract

In a collection of poetry, Mine de riens, published during the centennial year of his birth, Léon-Gontran Damas (1912-1978) paid tribute to the Amerindians by opening with a long poem which signified upon the masks ("mine" meaning 'expression', 'look', 'appearance', and, indeed 'mien') donned by the colonized indigenous population of the 'Eldorado' of the Guianas. In Mine de riens, he recalls the early exploitation of Native Americans as a cheap? labour-force in the Spanish gold mines. Damas also touches on other forgotten or taboo topics hitherto little represented in the literature of the Greater Caribbean, such as the sexual abuse of children (or 'minors', homonym of 'miners' in French), homoerotic desire (anticipating Christiane Taubira's quoting from Damas' Black-Label before the National Assembly in 2013 while defending gay marriage), and competing claims on historical commemoration in the French Republic (Jews and blacks being accorded unequal attention). The article also problematizes the neglect of Damas as co-founder of Negritude (with Senghor and Césaire), in sharp contrast to the attention paid to Glissant, Bernabé, Confiant, and Chamoiseau, Martinique's post-Negritude authors of Créolité, this partly because of the lack of public awareness caused by the problematic handling of Damas' manuscripts. The fact that Damas' own title, Mine de riens, was replaced by Dernière escale is a prime example of the lamentable state of affairs in Damasian studies today. 


Open access | Peer reviewed

Published Dec. 31, 2015 | Language: fr

Keywords Resurgence through politics, Queering French-Carib

Copyright © 2015 Kathleen Gyssels. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.14277/2499-5975/Tol-17-15-7


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