The Original 1939 Notebook of a Return to the Native Land. Aimé Césaire

by the sky truffled with fire, their feet by the drownings of the soil, they chose to perch shallowly between surprises and treacheries. And yet the town advances, yes it does. It even grazes every day further beyond its tide of tiled corridors, prudish shutters, gluey courtyards, dripping paintwork. And petty hushed-up scandals, petty unvoiced guilts, petty immense hatreds knead the narrow streets into bumps and potholes where the wastewater grins longitudinally through the turds …

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      Au bout du petit matin, la vie prostrée, on ne sait où dépêcher ses rêves avortés, le fleuve de vie désespérément torpide dans son lit, sans turges-

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