Jacques Roumain
From Philosopedia
Roumain, Jacques (4 June 1907 - 18 August 1944)
Roumain was born in Port-au-Prince to wealthy parents. His grandfather, Tancrède Auguste, served as the President of Haiti from 1912 to 1913. He was educated in Catholic schools in Port-au-Prince, and, later, in Belgium, Switzerland, France, Germany and Spain. At the age of 20, he returned to Haiti and formed La Revue Indigene: Les Arts et La Vie (The Indigenous Review: Arts and Life), along with Philippe Thoby-Marcelin, Carl Brouard, and Antonio Vieux.
Roumain was active in the struggle against the occupation of Haiti by the United States. In 1934 he founded the Haitian Communist Party. Because of some of his political activities, his participation in the resistance movement against the United States' occupation, and most notably, his creation of the Haitian Communist Party, he was often arrested and finally exiled by then President Stenio Vincent. Roumain was anti-Catholic and an atheist.
During his years in exile, Roumain worked with and befriended many prominent pan-African writers and poets of the time, including Langston Hughes. During this time he was also affiliated with Columbia University in New York City, where he conducted ethnographical research. With a change in government in Haiti, Roumain was allowed to return to his native country. Upon returning, he founded the Office of Ethnology. In 1943, President Elie Lescot appointed him charge d'affaires in Mexico, where his newly found creative freedom permitted him to complete two of his most influential books, the poetry collection Bois Debene (Ebony Wood) and the novel, Gouverneurs de la Rosée (Masters of the Dew).
Much of Roumain's work expresses the frustration and rage of people who have been downtrodden for centuries. He included the mass of the people in his writing and called on the poor to unite against privation. In writing about Négritude, Roumain referred to his outlook as being that of humanism.
Death and Legacy
Roumain died from a heart attack at age 37. He had created some of the most colorful, dynamic, and moving poetry of his generation. His writings continue to influence and shape Haitian culture and the pan-African world of today.
By the time of his death, Roumain had become an acclaimed writer in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Europe. Gouverneurs de la Rosée has achieved a place among great Caribbean and Latin American literature.
Selected works
Novels
- La Proie et l'Ombre (1930)
- Les Fantoches (1931)
- La Montagne Ensorcelée (1931)
- Gouverneurs de la Rosée (Masters of the Dew, 1944)
Poems
- Bois Debene (Ebony Wood)
