The University of London’s ILCS Centre for Latin American & Caribbean Studies (CLACS) presents speaker Rehnuma Sazzad (School of Advanced Study, University of London) who will deliver the lecture “Aimé Césaire and Derek Walcott: A Discussion on Decolonization from an Interdisciplinary Perspective.” This free online seminar takes place on January 27, 2026, at 16:30 GMT (UK time) via Zoom. You will need to register in advance at https://ilcs.sas.ac.uk/news-events/events/caribbean-studies-seminar-3 to receive the online joining link. See more information on the seminar below.
Description: The discussion on decolonization between Aimé Césaire (1913–2008) and Derek Walcott (1930–2017) offers two distinct yet interconnected perspectives from the Caribbean. Born in Martinique, Césaire won a scholarship to study in Paris, where he met future decolonial figures like Léopold Senghor and became a co-founder of Négritude, a forceful affirmation of Black identity. On the contrary, the Saint Lucian poet and playwright, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992, was of African, English, and Dutch descent. Walcott’s father was a painter and died when he was very young, and his mother, a schoolteacher who instilled the enthusiasm for the arts in him, raised him. He taught literature at Boston University for over two decades, founding the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre there in 1981.
While Césaire directly opposes the political and ethical foundations of colonialism, Walcott grapples with its complex cultural effects. A discussion about their roles in the decolonization movement provides a rich platform for understanding the phenomenon not just as a political process but also as a cultural and even personal one. Césaire’s life bears witness to a lived dilemma between assimilation and revolution. As an elected official in the French administration, he worked towards improving Martinican lives. Being strongly critical of the system, however, Césaire became a high priest of decolonization when the concept gained ground during the 2000s due to his idea that true independence was not just about raising a new flag; it was about dislodging the deep-seated cultural inferiority imposed on the Caribbeans by centuries of colonialism and racism. Consequently, his writings encouraged a generation of Caribbean and African intellectuals like Frantz Fanon to challenge European dominance.
Walcott’s life project was the empowerment of the Caribbeans in a different way which aimed to create an authentic voice of the people. He moved beyond the replication of European forms blending them with West Indian patois, folklore, and landscapes to create a ‘creolized’ style. For him, the Caribbean people are surrounded not simply by historical emptiness, but more importantly by the sea of possibility. Their ‘shipwreck’ is a chance to become a ‘new Adam,’ and name their own world. This is not to undermine the brutality of history like slavery but he demonstrated that to be perpetually fixed on the past was another form of imprisonment. His work acknowledges historical sufferings but concentrates on creating a vision that transcends the colonial image of the Caribbean as either a picturesque paradise or a savage wilderness. Thus, Walcott’s contribution to decolonization comes from endowing the Caribbean people with a soul, a history, and a voice.
Rehnuma Sazzad is Research Fellow at the School of Advanced Study, University of London and External Lecturer at the Department of English and American Studies, University of Regensburg. She is Associate Editor and Review Editor of the Journal of Postcolonial Writing and an Editorial Advisory Board Member for English: Journal of the English Association. Her first monograph, Edward Said’s Concept of Exile (Bloomsbury 2017), adds new depths to discourses of resistance, home and identity. She has completed her second monograph for Palgrave Macmillan, is co-editing a volume on Édouard Glissant and editing a collection Decolonizing the Curriculum.
The Caribbean Studies Seminar series actively promotes intellectual engagement and knowledge exchange by providing scholars – including postgraduate students and early career researchers – with the opportunity to present their interdisciplinary, comparative and integrated research on the Caribbean.
All are welcome to attend this free seminar, which will be held online via Zoom at 16:30 GMT (UK time). You will need to register in advance to receive the online joining link: https://ilcs.sas.ac.uk/news-events/events/caribbean-studies-seminar-3
For more information, see https://ilcs.sas.ac.uk/research-centres/centre-latin-american-caribbean-studies-clacs/clacs-events/seminar-series/caribbean-studies-seminar-series
The University of London’s ILCS Centre for Latin American & Caribbean Studies (CLACS) presents speaker Rehnuma Sazzad (School of Advanced Study, University of London) who will deliver the lecture “Aimé Césaire and Derek Walcott: A Discussion on Decolonization from an Interdisciplinary Perspective.” This free online seminar takes place on January 27, 2026, at 16:30 GMT