Preliminary Material -- OUT OF THE ABYSS: COMMONPLACES OF REPETITION AND REDEMPTION -- GLISSANT'S COMMON PLACES -- WALCOTT'S ALLEGORY OF HISTORY -- A BACKWARD FAITH IN WALCOTT'S “THE SCHOONER FLIGHT” -- CLAUDIA RANKINE: JANE EYRE'S BLUES AT THE END OF THE ALPHABET -- DEAR DIARY: AMANIFESTO - WEREWERE LIKING'S ELLE SERA DE JASPE ET DE CORAIL -- RITUALIZING UTOPIA IN ELLE SERA DE JASPE ET DE CORAIL -- MASKS OF AFFLICTION IN FRANKÉTIENNE'S HAITI -- FRANKÉTIENNE'S LOGORRHEA: AN EXCESS OF SEEMING -- “THE HORIZON DEVOURS MY VOICE”: NOTES ON TRANSLATION -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX.

“All the ingredients to become the next important book in the field of postcolonial studies with the emphasis on French Caribbean culture and literature.”—Daniel Desormeaux, University of Chicago In Free and French in the Caribbean, John Patrick Walsh studies the writings of Toussaint Louverture and Aimé Césaire to examine how they conceived of and narrated two defining events in the decolonializing of the French Caribbean: the revolution that freed the French colony of Saint-Domingue in 1803 and the departmentalization of Martinique and other French colonies in 1946. Walsh emphasizes the connections between these events and the distinct legacies of emancipation in the narratives of revolution and nationhood passed on to successive generations. By reexamining Louverture and Césaire in light of their multilayered narratives, the book offers a deeper understanding of the historical and contemporary phenomenon of “free and French” in the Caribbean. “A fruitful intervention in a growing body of literature and increasingly lively debate on the Haitian Revolution and the figure of Toussaint Louverture, the book also contributes to the emerging scholarship on Césaire, Francophone literature, and postcolonial theory.”—Gary Wilder, CUNY Graduate Center “A valuable contribution to both the rapidly proliferating literature on the Haitian Revolution and the emerging revisionist appreciation of Césaire’s intellectual and political project.”—Small Axe “J.P. Walsh has produced for the nonspecialist reader an excellent analysis of the historiographical discourse on Toussaint Louverture and Aimé Césaire with a focus on the meaning(s) of decolonization in the late eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries.”—New West Indian Guide “That Free and French inspires so many questions is testament to its ambition, the provocative parallel at its heart, and the richness of Walsh’s analysis.”—H-Empire

By paying attention to Algerian Independence, this book reconstructs the action of the Catholic Church regarding the issues of the spread of Islam in colonies, to Arab nationalism, Marxist propaganda in non-European countries, and the effects of the Algerian crisis upon the French political system. The complex relations between the Holy See and France, as well as those between the Vatican and the Episcopates and clergy of the overseas territories, are vital aspects of decolonisation, a topic which, to date, has been overlooked by historiography because of the impossibility of accessing documents relating to the pontificate of Pius XII (1939-1958) held in the Vatican archives. The opening in March 2020 of the archives of Pius XII, the Pope who had succeeded in imposing the strategic role of the Holy See upon the international scene, has made a vast amount of unpublished documentary material available to scholars. This book is useful for all students and scholars interested in the Cold War, the history of contemporary Europe, the history of the Church, postcolonial studies, and religious phenomenon in post-World War II Europe.