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)
“Misfortune is never invited. And it comes and sits at the table without permission and it eats, leaving nothing but bones.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)
“He touched the soil, caressing its grains between his fingers: ‘I am this: this earth here, and I have it in my blood. Look at my color; it seems as though the earth faded onto me and onto you too. This country belongs to the black man and each time others tried to take it away from us, we mowed down injustice with our machetes’.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)
“I respect the ways of old folks, but the blood of a rooster or a goat cannot turn the seasons, change the course of the clouds and fill them up with water like bladders. The other night, at the ceremony for Legba, I danced and sang my fill: I am a black man, no? and I enjoyed it like a true Negro should. When the drums beat, I feel it in the pit of my stomach, I feel the itch in my hips and up and down my legs, I have got to join the party. But that is all.”
—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)