La sal del poema

Édouard Glissant was an important Franco-Caribbean novelist, poet and essayist. In 1956, he published Sol de la conciencia and the collection of poems Les Indes under the Le Seuil imprint. In 1958, he was awarded the Renaudot Prize for his novel La Lézarde, which earned him critical and public recognition. Committed to the anti-colonialist struggle, in 1965 he returned to his place of origin and founded the Acoma magazine, whose purpose was to deepen reflection on the situation in the Antilles. Between 1981 and 1988 he was director of the Unesco Post Office. In 1994, the City University of New York appointed him to the chair of French literature. The awarding of various prizes, as well as his participation in colloquiums and congresses at universities such as the Sorbonne, New York University or Universidade do Porto, earned him international recognition. In 2006 French President Jacques Chirac appointed him the mission of creating a center for the memory of slavery, whose work materialized a year later with the publication of Memoires des esclavages. This anthology collects a part of his poetic production from the edition that the Gallimard publishing house published in 1994.