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| Tropiques | |
|---|---|
| Title | Tropiques |
| Editor | Aimé Césaire, Suzanne Césaire, René Ménil |
| Category | Literary magazine |
| Firstdate | 1941 |
| Finaldate | 1945 |
| Country | Martinique |
| Language | French |
Tropiques was a quarterly literary and cultural review published in Fort-de-France, Martinique, during World War II. Founded and edited by Aimé Césaire, Suzanne Césaire, and René Ménil, the review combined poetry, essays, criticism, and visual art to challenge colonial orthodoxies and to forge intellectual links among Caribbean, African, and European writers. It served as a nexus for dialogues among figures associated with the Negritude movement, Surrealism, Antillanité, and anti-colonial thought, publishing work that intersected with contemporaries in Paris, Dakar, Lisbon, and New York.
Tropiques emerged in 1941 in the context of the Vichy regime, the German occupation of France, the Free French movement led by Charles de Gaulle, and the broader geopolitics of World War II. Its founders were active in Martinique under the administration of Admiral Robert, during a period that also involved figures such as Édouard Daladier, Philippe Pétain, and Georges Mandel in metropolitan politics. Influences reached across the Atlantic from writers associated with the Harlem Renaissance—including Langston Hughes and Claude McKay—and from Parisian modernists like André Breton and Paul Éluard. Colonial administration in the French Antilles and imperial structures involving the British Empire, the United States, and the League of Nations created the circumstances in which a local intellectual counterpublic could assert alternatives to assimilationist policies.
The editorial collective comprised Aimé Césaire, Suzanne Césaire, and René Ménil, who curated contributions by local and international writers and artists. Regular and guest contributors included Léon-Gontran Damas, Frantz Fanon, Édouard Glissant, Georges Desportes, and Jean Price-Mars, as well as artists and thinkers connected to Surrealist circles like André Breton and Victor Serge. Beyond poets and critics, Tropiques featured visual work influenced by Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, and Caribbean painters whose work dialogued with galleries and salons in Paris and New York. The review also engaged with intellectuals from Dakar and Abidjan and corresponded with publishers in Paris such as Gallimard and Plon.
Tropiques published poetry, essays, manifestos, and visual art that explored identity, négritude, Antillanité, Surrealism, creolization, folklore, and the critique of colonial racism. Contributors debated the legacies of Toussaint Louverture, Aimé Césaire’s own poetics, and the works of contemporaries like Léopold Sédar Senghor and Suzanne Césaire. The review addressed themes present in the writings of Joséphine Baker and Paul Robeson, and it positioned Caribbean cultural production alongside African revivals associated with the Negritude conferences and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Tropiques foregrounded language politics involving French, Creole speech, and literary forms influenced by Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and Stéphane Mallarmé.
Published under the watchful eye of colonial administrators and during the era of censorship exercised by Vichy authorities and Free French officials, Tropiques negotiated risks similar to those confronting clandestine presses like Combat and Les Lettres Françaises. The magazine faced surveillance by local police, naval authorities, and intelligence networks connected to London and Washington. Editorial decisions were shaped by contemporary legal frameworks such as decrees issued by Marshal Pétain and by wartime press regulations enforced across French territories. Tropiques’ critiques of assimilationist policies and its anti-fascist stance put contributors at odds with pro-Vichy elements and with metropolitan journalists sympathetic to conservative factions.
Reception ranged from local admiration among Martinican readers and Caribbean intellectuals to scrutiny from colonial officials and mixed reviews in metropolitan journals. Tropiques influenced subsequent movements and figures including Negritude poets in Dakar and Paris, postwar thinkers like Frantz Fanon, and later theorists such as Édouard Glissant and René Depestre. Its aesthetic and political interventions resonated with cultural circles in New York that included members of the Harlem Renaissance, and with European avant-garde communities linked to Surrealism and Existentialism. The review’s interventions were later cited in debates at institutions like the Sorbonne and Columbia University.
Printed in Fort-de-France, Tropiques had a limited run and modest circulation constrained by wartime shortages, shipping restrictions, and postal inspections. Copies circulated among subscribers, intellectual salons, and networks connecting Martinique to Paris, Dakar, Rio de Janeiro, and New York. Distribution involved printers, booksellers, and émigré networks, and intersected with publishing houses such as Seghers and Éditions de la Revue des Nouvelles Littéraires. Its reach was amplified through exchanges with libraries, university collections, and private correspondences with editors in metropolitan France.
Tropiques’ legacy endures in literary histories, academic studies, and archival collections held at institutions like the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and university archives at Harvard, Yale, and the University of the West Indies. Manuscripts, correspondence, and original issues inform scholarship on Antillean literature, postcolonial studies, and comparative modernism, influencing exhibitions, dissertations, and critical editions of works by Aimé Césaire, Suzanne Césaire, and René Ménil. The review remains a primary source for researchers tracing linkages among Caribbean, African, and European intellectuals during the mid-20th century.
Category:Literary magazines Category:Martinique