Born in 1913 in Basse-Terre, Martinique,Aimé Césairestudied at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and then at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. In 1939, he wrote Cahier d'un retour au pays natal, which is one of the major texts of the Négritude movement. A teacher at the Lycée Schoelcher, he was elected MP and mayor of Fort-de-France from 1945 to 1993 and 2001. He was the initiator of the departmentalization law, but denounced "the savagery of Europe" in Discours sur le colonialisme (1955). In 1956, he resigned from the French Communist Party and founded the Martinique Progressive Party. A major figure in anti-colonialism and pan-Africanism, Césaire is one of the most widely read poets and writers in the world. He died on April 17, 2008 in Martinique, and received a national funeral and tributes from around the world.
