A founder of the Négritude movement in francophone literature

A founder of the Négritude movement in francophone literature

In Pablo Picasso’s portrait of Aimé Césaire, drawn after they met at the Soviet-organized World Congress of Intellectuals in Defence of Peace in Poland in August 1948, a man with a long, thin neck and close-cropped hair stands tall, his head ringed by a wreath of small flowers. His right eye is wide open; he might be gazing into the distance or glancing at the viewer. The shadow he casts makes it hard to tell exactly where he begins and ends. Th…