Rediscovering Identity and Restoring African Values through Cultural Resistance: A Postcolonial Reading of Aimé Césaire's Poem "Notebook of a Return to the Native Land"

Abstract

The paper investigates Aimé Césaire's “Notebook of a Return to the Native Land" as a medium of rediscovering the identity and promoting African history, and civilization by means of a cultural revolution. It attempts to evaluate the nature of Césaire's “negritude" and its relevance. Césaire speaks of the necessity of a cultural renaissance and returning to his ancestral roots to end European colonialism and its physical and psychological harms. The study explores the deplorable conditions of the colonies because of the effects of colonial racism, and injustices. It outlines Césaire’s stance on what it means to be an African under the tyranny of France and his longing for the glorious past of Africa. It is a qualitative research where the textual analysis method is utilized as the select method and the primary data is collected from “Notebook of a Return to the Native Land” and it is critically explored through the lenses of post-colonialism.