Jacques Roumain (June 4, 1907 – August 18, 1944) was a Haitian writer, politician, and advocate of Marxism. He is considered one of the most prominent figures in Haitian literature. Although poorly known in the English-speaking world, Roumain has significant following in Europe, and is renowned in the Caribbean and Latin America. The great African-American poet, Langston Hughes, translated some of Roumain's greatest works, including Gouverneurs de la Rosée (Masters of the Dew). Although his life was short, Roumain managed to touch many aspects of Haitian life and culture.
Read more about Jacques Roumain: Life, Death and Legacy, Quotes, Selected Works
Famous quotes by jacques roumain:
“It would not be an easy thing to bring the water all the way to the plain. They would have to organize a great coumbite with all the peasants and the water would unite them once again, its fresh breath would clear away the fetid stink of anger and hatred; the brotherly community would be reborn with new plants, the fields filled with to bursting with fruits and grains, the earth gorged with life, simple and fertile.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)
“Peasants are a rude lot, and hard: life has hardened their hearts, but they are thick and awkward only in appearance; you have to know them. No one is more sensitive to what gives man the right to call himself a man: good-heartedness, bravery and virile brotherhood.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)
“And Manuel embraced his mother and they laughed together: Délira’s laugh sounded surprisingly young; that was because she hadn’t really had the chance to make it heard; life was just not happy enough for that. No, she never had time to use it; she had kept it fresh as can be, like a birdsong in an old nest.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)
“We sing the funeral, as goes the custom, with the hymn of the Dead. But Manuel, he chose a hymn for the living: the song of the coumbite, the song of the earth, of the water, the plants, of fellowship between peasants because he wanted, as I now understand it, that his death for you be the renewal of life.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)