Additional information
by Aimé Césaire (Author), Alex Gil (Translator), Brent Hayes Edwards (Foreword by)
Available to readers for the first time, Aimé Césaire's three-act drama . . . . . . And the Dogs Were Silent--written during the Vichy regime in Martinique in 1943 and lost until 2008--dramatizes the Haitian Revolution and the rise and fall of Toussaint Louverture as its heroic leader. This bilingual English and French edition stands apart from Césaire's more widely known 1946 closet drama. Following the slave revolts that sparked the revolution, Louverture arrives as both prophet and poet, general and visionary. With striking dramatic technique, Césaire retells the revolution in poignant encounters between rebels and colonial forces, guided by a prophetic chorus and Louverture's steady ethical and political vision. In the last act, we reach the hero's betrayal, his imprisonment, and his last stand against the lures of compromise. Césaire's masterwork is a strikingly beautiful and brutal indictment of colonial cruelty and an unabashed celebration of Black rebellion and victory.
Author Biography
Aimé Césaire (1913-2008) was a Martinican poet, critic, essayist, playwright, and statesman; a founder of the Negritude movement; and one of the most influential Francophone Caribbean intellectuals of the twentieth century. He is the author of Journal of a Homecoming / Cahier d'un retour au pays natal, also published by Duke University Press.
Alex Gil is Senior Lecturer II and Associate Research Faculty of Digital Humanities in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University. Brent Hayes Edwards is Peng Family Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University
