Leopold Sedar Senghor

The Presses Universitaires de France and Frémeaux & Associés offer this biography of Léopold Sédar Senghor by Elara Bertho, CNRS researcher and specialist in the period of decolonization in West Africa. First African with a grammar degree, poet celebrated around the world, first president of Senegal, academician: Senghor had all the honors. Accused of essentialism for having invented Negritude, of authoritarianism for having imprisoned his opponents, it is difficult today to paint a nuanced portrait of Senghor while doing justice to the great topicality of his poetic and philosophical thought. Yet it is this crest line that Elara Bertho takes, far from hagiography, far from anathemas. How can his thought of the universal and the dialogue of cultures still speak to us? How can his anti-capitalist critique of the Western world resonate with contemporary ecological struggles? Discovering Senghor, one is struck by the modernity of his thought: socialism, negritude, universal, faith, are the key words of this man with a complex discourse, which one must take the time to read and understand.