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"From revolt to tenderness", the living archives of the Haitian poet René Depestre

View of the exhibition "René Depestre, from revolt to tenderness", based on the archives of the Francophone Multimedia Library (BFM) in Limoges.

© Siegfried Forster / RFI

Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow

8 mins

In ten panels and through many very rare, even unpublished archives, the Francophone Multimedia Library (BFM) of Limoges recounts the life, literary and political commitment and work of the great Haitian poet René Depestre, born in 1926, who crossed paths with Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, André Breton and Aimé Césaire.

Interview with the librarian Patricia Laroussarie, responsible for this very prestigious Francophonie center at the BFM and curator of the exhibition.

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The revolt represents the first years, even if he is always a rebellious being in his writing and in his documents, in everything he wrote on racism, colonization, the bad sides of globalization.

Tenderness is a word that comes up in many writings, both poems and essays.

And especially towards the end of his work, he speaks a lot of tenderness.

We went to see him to recover part of the archives for the exhibition we were preparing.

I asked him the question, do you prefer as a title: “ 

 ” or rather “ 

 ”?

And replied to him: “ 

 Depestre has calmed down over the years.

Certain writings, certain poems, he reworked them for certain editions, in particular in that of 2005 which is called

, and in the preface, he also explains this, because he wanted to speak to the reader of the 21st century.

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There are ten panels hung on a small hut, but visitors realize very quickly that the documents and contents are worthy of a pantheon.

Are there any new things

In the documents on display, there are certain things that have never been seen before or things that the general public has not necessarily seen, in particular the manuscripts.

In the first showcase, there is everything concerning

 [published in 1951, prefaced by Aimé Césaire].

We have his handwritten poems that no one has seen, people have only seen or read the published version.

I found it interesting to show these sets, the book and the manuscript.

Depestre put a lot of annotations.

These are new things to discover.

The BFM has leading archives.

Who consults the Depestre archives

These archives are alive.

There are researchers who even come from the United States, for example the person who translated into English the novel “Hadriana dans tous mes rêves” [Renaudot prize in 1988].

Today, there is a person from Glasgow to consult the archives and prepare a documentary on Depestre.

Sometimes, they make us discover things, and we, we also direct them towards something else.

I think there are still a lot of new ones [laughs].

The last thing you discovered

It is perhaps anecdotal: in his work, Depestre met many characters, many politicians.

While doing the exhibition, I discovered a small document of his arrest in 1952, when he was in Cuba.

I found an article in a newspaper where they talk about his arrest.

There is a whole set of documents.

Among these four documents, there is the official document of his arrest.

This is the latest little find.

René Depestre is a real novel.

Even when he recounts his life, it is a mainstream novel.

In the Rene Depestre Collection, there are notes, drafts, manuscripts, typescripts, it's filled with small notebooks... In the part "The meaning of a victory", there is a set of documents where he explains why and how he was arrested and expelled from Cuba in 1952.

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You are showing in the exhibition a copy of the second edition of Les

, his first book, published in 1945. But you can also discover the very moving words of the

The

was precisely an unpublished poem, it was he who gave it to us, in 2018, when we went to find these archives.

The poem is a tribute to his mother… we couldn't talk about Depestre without talking about his mother who often comes up in his writings.

You did an interview with René Depestre in 2018 which is screened in the exhibition for the first time.

What struck you most about him

His human warmth and his tenderness touched me a lot.

He granted us the interview, despite the fact that he hardly receives any more… He is very warm, then there is his voice, his little laugh that everyone is talking about, and his way of telling his life like a novel .

There is also this respect for the person in front of him, I thought that was great.

It's a lifetime, and he is always equal to himself, he has kept this soul of childhood.

Today he is 96 years old.

Is he aware of this exhibition

Yes, of course he knows.

But he has no computer, no email address, etc.

When there are requests from researchers, we call him.

It is asked for permissions, sometimes to scan things, etc.

We also write to him regularly to send him documents.

The last time, I wrote to him to tell him about an agreement to put things online afterwards on the digital library.

I warned him that we are going to do this exhibition.

Besides, he sent me a very cute little note, a handwritten letter, which he ends with " 

 ".

There is always this tenderness and this benevolent look on the people he meets.

How is it that a well-known poet and writer donated his archives to a library in Limoges and not in Paris or Port-au-Prince

He came here in 2004 to Limoges for the Festival des Francophonies.

At the time, my colleague heard that Mr. Depestre wanted to donate his archives.

Here he had the opportunity to develop his fund.

And he knew that the library already had very prestigious French-speaking funds such as the

Fund, the Emmanuel Roblès Fund (member of the School of Algiers and friend of Camus) or the Edmont Charlot Fund (publisher of Free France during the Occupation and Camus).

The Franco-Rwandan writer and musician Gaël Faye who recorded a reading of Depestre's poems, but also the Haitian poet Jean D'Amérique and other authors of this generation evoke René Depestre today.

Is there a revival of his work

The writing of Jean D'Amérique is completely different, but we find the themes on Haiti, on voodoo, for example in

, but it is not at all the same tone.

I had asked Depestre for an opinion on the new generation, he knew

, but in terms of tone and form of writing, it's still very different.

In the writing of Jean D'Amérique, we also feel this violence of today's world.

René Depestre also expresses it, but not in the same way, there is another rhythm, another form of singing.

On the other hand, it is true, the younger generation tackles subjects that Depestre also denounced.

Depestre marked the spirits a lot.

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