René Philoctète

Philoctète, René 

Born 1932. Haitian writer who writes in French.

Philoctète is a college teacher. In his first poetry collection, A Season of Men (1960), he expressed a poetic love for his people—the lower social strata of Haiti. The narrative poem Drums of the Sun (1962) contains elements of Haitian and Creole folktales, rhythms of old folk songs, and proverbs, combined with modern free verse and rhythmic prose; a political message underlies the folklore imagery. The narrative poem Islands Advancing (1969), an impassioned anthem to Philoctète’s native land and its sensual, sunny beauty, is a dream of liberation for Haiti and all the Antilles.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
[Poems.] Inostrannaia literatura, 1963, no. 3.
[Narrative poem and verses.] In the anthology Vzorvannoe molchanie: Sovremennaia poeziia Gaiti. Moscow, 1968. [Afterword by E. Ga’perina.]

E. L. GAL’PERINA