Jacques Roumain

Jacques Roumain
Roumain in 1942
Born(1907-06-04)June 4, 1907
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
DiedAugust 18, 1944(1944-08-18) (aged 37)
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
OccupationsWriter, politician, poet
Notable workGouverneurs de la Rosée (Masters of the Dew)
Political party
Haitian Communist Party

Jacques Roumain (French pronunciation: [ʒak ʁumɛ̃]; June 4, 1907 – August 18, 1944) was a Haitian writer and politician, considered one of the most prominent figures in Haitian literature. Ideologically a Marxist and communist, Roumain helped establish a number of leftist organizations, foremost the Haitian Communist Party, which he led until his exile in 1936.

Langston Hughes translated some of Roumain's works, including Gouverneurs de la Rosée (Masters of the Dew), which was also adapted to film.

Life

Roumain was born on June 4, 1907, in Port-au-Prince to wealthy mulatto parents. His grandfather, Tancrède Auguste, served as the President of Haiti from 1912 to 1913. He was educated in Catholic schools in Port-au-Prince, and later in Belgium, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Spain. At twenty years old, he returned to Haiti and formed La Revue Indigene: Les Arts et La Vie (The Indigenous Review: Arts and Life), along with Philippe Thoby-Marcelin, Carl Brouard, and Antonio Vieux.

He was active in the struggle against the United States' occupation of Haiti.[citation needed] Roumain founded the Anti-Imperialist League with fellow communist Georges Petit in 1934. A few months later in the summer of 1934, Roumain and other young communists founded the Haitian Communist Party (abbreviated as PCH, from French) in Port-au-Prince. Roumain became the party's leader and co-authored the party's program, The Schematic Analysis, 1932–1934, with Étienne Charlier, a core party member who had been educated in Paris. The program offered the first Marxist critique of Haitian society.

The establishment of the PCH alarmed the Haitian authorities, who began a crackdown on leftists in August 1934. Roumain was arrested and charged with treason; his case rested largely on a letter in which he requested "matériel" from a Haitian communist living in New York City. The authorities interpreted "matériel" to mean explosives, but Roumain had in fact been asking for purchased literature related to the convictions of the Scottsboro Boys of Alabama, whose release he had been supporting. Roumain protested his detention, stating that brochures were not explosives and communists were not terrorists. International leftist and black organizations also pressed for his release. The court nonetheless convicted him and sentenced him to three years in prison. In 1936, President Sténio Vincent pardoned Roumain and other leftists because he no longer felt threatened by the left; in the previous year, he extended his presidential powers and tenure through a successful popular referendum. Roumain subsequently left Haiti on 15 August, making his way to Europe for what would become a five-year-long self-exile.

During his years in exile, Roumain worked with and befriended many prominent pan-African writers and poets of the time, including Langston Hughes. During this time he was also affiliated with Columbia University in New York City, where he conducted ethnographical research. With a change in government in Haiti, Roumain was allowed to return to his native country. Upon returning, he founded the Office of Ethnology. In 1943, President Élie Lescot appointed him chargé d'affaires in Mexico, where his newly found creative freedom permitted him to complete two of his most influential books, the poetry collection Bois D'ébène (Ebony Wood) and the novel, Gouverneurs de la Rosée (Masters of the Dew). He also published that year the seminal paper "Lithic Workshop of the Ciboney of Haiti", and as a result is regarded[by whom?] as the father of Haitian archaeology.

Much of Roumain's work expresses the frustration and rage of people who have been downtrodden for centuries. He included the mass of the people in his writing and called on the poor to unite to move against privation.

Death and legacy

On August 18, 1944, Roumain died of unknown causes at age 37. Roumain created some of the most colorful, dynamic, and moving poetry of his generation. His writings continue to influence and shape Haitian culture and the pan-African world of today.

By the time of his death, Roumain had become an acclaimed writer in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Europe. His novel, Gouverneurs de la Rosée, has achieved a place among Caribbean and Latin American literature. It is a novel that is still studied at universities, read by new generations, and acted out by theatrical groups.

Selected works

From the collection of the Library of Congress, Washington, DC:

Notes

  1. ↑ Original French title: L'Analyse schématique 32–34

References

  1. ↑ Chemla 2024, pp. 343–363.
  2. ↑ Smith 2009, p. 19.
  3. ↑ Smith 2009, pp. 19, 87.
  4. ↑ Kaussen 2024, p. 327.
  5. ↑ Strupp 2021.
  6. ↑ Smith 2009, pp. 20–21.
  7. ↑ Smith 2009, p. 21.
  8. ↑ Smith 2009, p. 22.

Sources

  • Chemla, Yves (2024), "Jacques Roumain, from Indigenism to Nationalism", in Glover, Kaiama L.; Daut, Marlene L. (eds.), A History of Haitian Literature, Cambridge University Press, pp. 343–363, ISBN 978-1-009-48514-2, retrieved February 6, 2026
  • Dalleo, Raphael (2011). Caribbean Literature and the Public Sphere: From the Plantation to the Postcolonial. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
  • Fowler, Carolyn (1980). A Knot in the Thread. Washington, DC: Howard University Press.
  • Schutt-Ainé, Patricia (1994). Haiti: A Basic Reference Book. Miami, Florida: Librairie Au Service de la Culture. p. 105. ISBN 0-9638599-0-0.
  • Dash, J. Michael (1981). Literature and Ideology in Haiti, 1915–1961. Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes and Noble Books. p. 129. ISBN 0-389-20092-1.
  • Joseph, Celucien L. (2012). "The Rhetoric of Suffering, Hope, and Redemption in Masters of the Dew: A Rhetorical and Politico-Theological Analysis of Manuel as Peasant-Messiah and Redeemer". Memphis Theological Seminary Journal, 51:1–36.
  • Joseph, Celucien L. (2012). "Faith, Secular Humanism, and Development: A Reading of Jacques Roumain's Religious Sensibility and Marxist Rhetoric". Journal of Postcolonial Networks.
  • Joseph, Celucien L. (2013). "From Toussaint to Price-Mars: Rhetoric, Race, and Religion in Haitian Thought". CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
  • Kaussen, Valerie (2024). "Marxism and the Moun Andeyo". In Daut, Marlene L.; Glover, Kaiama L. (eds.). A History of Haitian Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 325–342. ISBN 978-1-009-48511-1. Retrieved May 2, 2026.
  • Smith, Matthew J. (2009). Red & Black in Haiti: Radicalism, Conflict, and Political Change, 1934–1957. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-5937-7. Retrieved April 29, 2026.
  • Strupp, Matthew (January 10, 2021). "The Founding of the Haitian Communist Party". Cosmonaut. Retrieved May 2, 2026.