An Epistemology of Self-Knowing: Suzanne Césaire, André Breton, and Caribbean Surrealism

Abstract: During World War II, Suzanne Césaire theorized a unique Caribbean surrealism within the pages of Tropiques . Neither simply an aesthetic category nor an artistic practice, it is her Caribbean surrealism through which Césaire invites her countrymen and women to “dare to know oneself!” in the creation of what I call her epistemology of self-knowing, which she shows is key to the achievement of both individual and collective freedom. Césaire relies neither on a time in the postcolonial future nor in a precolonial past to imagine this freedom. Her Caribbean surrealist time supplants linear constructions. This essay examines the foundational principles of her Caribbean surrealist philosophy, putting it in conversation with and showing how it diverges from that of André Breton and others, as she did herself.