SOURCE: An interview in Critical Perspectives on Léon-Gontran Damas, edited by Keith Q. Warner, Three Continents Press, 1988, pp. 23-8.

[Warner is a Trinidadian educator and critic. In the following interview, which was conducted in July 1972 and originally published in the journal Manna in 1973, Damas remarks on his career and the Négritude movement.]

[Warner]: Do you think that when you started writing you did so mainly out of the urge to be productive from a literary point of view, or rather out of the urge to convey a particular message? If message there was, did you think that poetry was the vehicle to convey it?

[Damas]: There was definitely a message. A cultural one first of all, and a political one. We cannot separate culture from politics. Nobody can do that. All the revolutions on the world succeed chiefly by the message of the poets.

You say by the message of the poets …

Poets and writers.

It is noticeable that most of the early négritude writing was by poets.

Yes, and thanks to négritude you had the end of French colonialism and the independence of Africa—thanks to négritude and to people who were not African, that's Césaire and myself.

I have found that in most of the talk of négritude, mention is made of the big three: Senghor, Césaire, and Damas, but I think you rank about the least known. Does this arouse any sort of feeling in you? How do you react to this?

There is no particular feeling. In Vermont at the Conference on Black Francophone Literature, they asked me, "Who is the father of négritude?" I said, "I'm fed up of all that. I don't understand why négritude needs so many fathers." Anyway I recalled an African proverb. I said that in Africa we don't know our fathers, we know our mothers. Now, the man who coined the word "Négritude" was Aimé Césaire, and Senghor has been obliged to admit this. But, for many reasons, Senghor is first now, the father of négritude. In Vermont they asked me who I was among the three. I said, "Perhaps I'm the Holy Spirit." But I can't be bothered by the attitude of some critics towards me. Why? Because I have the conviction that my work constitutes an important message, and Pigments has been not only the first book of its generation, Pigments has been the manifesto of the négritude movement.

More so than Césaire's Cahier d'un retour au pays natal?

Well, all the poets who came after Pigments were obliged to use material from the poems that comprise it. All the themes of Pigments, all the ideas in it have been taken, and from that period till now I see nothing new.

In other words you were way ahead of your time.

Yes. And at any rate, Pigments has been and still is a very big movement. I'm waiting for the new poets, the new writers and I'm waiting for what they can bring us that is new.

Can you point to a specific example of how Pigments has become a movement?

From Pigments you have a new movement in the United States—Soul Poetry. I'm not afraid to say that in my poetry you find rhythm. My poems can be danced. They can be sung. And what are they doing now? They sing poetry, soul music, soul literature, even soul food. At any rate you have a new generation in the states. I talk about the States because there are millions of black people living here.

I wonder though, whether bringing song and dance back into poetry, the new generation as you call them is not just going back to poetry in its true form. I am reminded of Paul Valéry calling a volume of poems Charmes, using the word in its etymological sense, that is songs or poems from the Latin "carmen". Anyway, since you started to talk about American blacks, let me ask another question along that line. Do you see some more connections between your works and those of American blacks?

Négritude has been the French expression of the New Negro movement and soul poetry is now the American expression of the négritude movement.

Now, the big three négritude poets all went into politics at a particular time. Two are still there, while you have quit the political scene. What is the reason for this? Did you become disenchanted with politics or are you waiting for le coup final?

First of all we belong to different countries. I'm not an islander. I'm a man of the forest. I'm from a continent. We don't belong to the same social background. I'm from French Guyana and the problems there are not the same as the problems in Martinique or Guadeloupe or even Africa. Similarly, the problems of Africa are not the problems of the French West Indies. You see, I'm a man like my land—they accept me or reject me. And I accept or reject. I never vary in my position.

Is this why since Pigments you have not published anything quite as forceful? Have you said it all in Pigments?

No, I think my best book is Black-Label. Pigments was a manifesto of the movement, but the plain explanation of Pigments can be found in Black-Label and in Retour de Guyane.

Do you find that critics have misjudged what you were trying to say?

All the critics of négritude know nothing of the work of Senghor, nothing of the entire work of Césaire, nothing of my entire work. They just talk about négritude and about our works from pieces they read in anthologies. For example, they talk mainly about Cahier d'un retour au pays natal, ignoring Corps Perdu, Ferrements, Cadastre, Discours sur le colonialisme, etc. Now thanks to Senghor, Césaire and myself, we stayed the way we were in the beginning and all our books, after the first, were explanations of the first. And that's why, for many reasons, for political ones especially, Senghor has a big market now, Césaire is well known in Europe and elsewhere. As for myself, I'm as well known as Césaire and Senghor because we are the big three of négritude. They can't talk about Césaire and Senghor, and I'm fed up about that, without talking about Damas. At any rate, Senghor always pays us tribute, Césaire too, I suppose.

Speaking of Césaire, what can somebody like him do as a writer in a small country since he is fighting a world problem? Writing books cannot really help the situation in Martinique.

But Césaire's books are not read in Martinique.

Do you think they should be read in Martinique?

They refused.

Who refused?

His own people. First of all, the people who should read Césaire are illiterate, and that's why Césaire is obliged now to talk in créole. There is a cultural movement now, that's in créole. All the speeches are done in créole in Guadeloupe and Martinique. I don't know for French Guyana.

Do you see this as evidence of the fact that authors are finally realizing that they were above the level of the people? Are the writers finally coming down to the people?

No, that's another problem. It's the problem of education which obliged the people to read French authors, not native ones, and there is another problem—these people are not published in Martinique or Guadeloupe, they are published in France. Also the best readers of Césaire and myself are white French people.

As writers were you aware of this, that you were publishing for whites mainly?

You see, it's not the same situation as in the United States. You do not have as many readers in Martinique, Guadeloupe and French Guyana. You do not have a public, a mass of readers. You just have an elite, and you have people who can buy some of the books, and these books are very expensive.

What I want to find out is whether in writing for a white audience you did not subconsciously change what you were saying, whereas if you were writing for a black audience it would be quite different.

No, there was no conscious change.

Where do you find your readers?

You have some people who read Césaire and myself in French Guyana and in Martinique, but I suppose we are read by West Indians who live abroad in France or elsewhere but not in Martinique. And we shall be read now because in France at the Sorbonne they will organize a course on Négritude from next year. Perhaps the programme will be obliged to include the works of Césaire and other African writers. But in Martinique they are afraid to be confused with Africans. They criticize those writers for being too African.

The African writers?

No. They criticize Césaire and myself for our Africanness, our race consciousness because they tell you they are not Africans. They are créoles, they are French before being black, they are Martiniquans, they are Guadeloupeans, with nothing to do with Africa. And they say that if Césaire writes so many things about Africa, it's because he wants one day to be president of Martinique. Anyway, I suppose he's fed up with politics now and with the attitude of his brothers and sisters of Martinique.

And what about you? How do you stand in relation to the struggle?

I have to fight and will continue to fight. I help and continue to help. But I never published what I have to publish and what I shall publish now.

Is this more literary material? More essays?

More essays and poems. I now have to write the true history of the négritude movement. All those people who published, and chiefly Lilyan Kesteloot, recognise that they've been helped to publish what they did.

When you say that you are ready to tell the truth about the movement, it sounds as if we've been told a lot of lies. Is this so?

Yes. So many people have published books, theses and articles without knowing anything. They try to oppose me to Senghor and Césaire, but I can tell you that this will never happen. I know Senghor and Césaire. I know their foibles, their faults and they know my qualities and defects. But, as we began together, we have to stay together. They know that the historian of the movement will be Damas.

They know this?

Yes, and they are waiting.

I was about to ask whether we could expect the same type of revelation from Senghor and Césaire as well.

No. I suppose that they continue to work by themselves, but without doing what I am doing now—researching and studying our attitude, our way of life, but in a specific way. We can't talk of négritude if we don't take care of our psychological and sociological problems, our anthropological problem, our geographical problem.

Speaking of our geographical problem, what role does the West Indian play as a West Indian as opposed to as a black man?

He has to put out front chiefly West Indian problems, not African ones or problems of the négritude movement.

In other words we get back to the whole question of commitment.

Yes. The West Indian has to create something new based on the West Indian background. This he can do thanks to the race consciousness the awareness he received from us. We did not succeed on the political scene with the West Indian federation, but in the cultural field you will see many West Indians creating a new writing, and from this perhaps Africa will take something, the same way Africa received something from the French West Indies by way of the négritude movement.

Are you implying that Africa has more to learn from the West Indies than vice versa?

But even Senghor recognises that he discovered his Africanness through the West Indian Césaire and through me! He is not afraid to tell the truth.

Don't you think that the West Indian's race consciousness stems from the fact that he had undergone what the African had not, namely being taken away from his country?

Our experience has indeed been very great and the contribution of the West Indian to the liberation of the minds of black people has been very important.

Do you have a final word for your readers?

All I can ask is for people not to be in a hurry to see my publications.

Your works are there waiting to be published?

Yes, and there are many publishers waiting for my works. They don't understand why I'm not more published. But I don't publish merely to see my name on a book. I publish when I feel the need to say something.

Is this what motivated you in former publications?

I'm convinced that I contributed something by my studies in the literary field, in the political field. I'm not bothered about not being Député for French Guyana. There is plenty of time for that. That was a profession for others, not for me. It was just an occupation for me. I'm a writer, and when I decide, a teacher, like I am now.

So your message is now expounded in the classroom?

Teaching in the States is one way for me to help—to help today as I helped yesterday, and as I'm ready to help tomorrow.