Ina Césaire

Ina Césaire was a French playwright and ethnographer. In her 1981 article "Littérature orale et contes", "she discusses how Caribbean story tales are true 'révélateur' of that spirit and affirms that the role of Caribbean folktale is to represent the culture."

Background

Ina Césaire was born on 13 October 1942, as the daughter of the author and politician Aimé Césaire. Her mother, Suzanne Césaire, was a French writer from Martinique whose work is connected with the Francophone Negritude movement.
Césaire died on 24 June 2025, at the age of 82.

Playwright

Césaire’s dramatic works owe much to oral story-telling. Her "conte-inspired theatrical works show a progression from fully adapting a conte to the stage in her early plays, to inserting elements of conte or storytelling in later works, to updating certain contes by adapting them to a contemporary setting in more recent plays. Her first play L’Enfant des Passages ou la Geste de Ti-Jean, for instance, is a dramatic treatment of the adventures of an archetypal conte character Ti-Jean. Several of her other plays feature a narrator character who echoes the figure of the conteur from the conte tradition."

Works

Plays

Mémoires d'Isles, Maman N. et Maman F. Paris: Editions Caribéennes, 1985.
L'Enfant des Passages ou la Geste de Ti-Jean. Paris: Editions Caribéennes, 1987.
La Maison close. création 1991.
Rosanie Soleil. Paris: Soc. Des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques, 1992. création 1992.

In English

. Translation, Christiane Makward et J. Miller. Plays by French and Francophone Women. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994: 49–74.
"Fire's Daughters ". Translation. Judith G. Miller: New French Language Plays. New York: Ubu Repertory Theatre, 1993: 1–53.

Novels

Zonzon Tête Carrée. Monaco: Ed. du Rocher, 1994 ; Monaco: Alphée/Le Serpent à Plumes, 2004.
Aimé Césaire, 10 ans déjà, éditions L'Esprit du Temps, 2018, with Patrick Singaïny

Reviews

Miyasaki, June,, Journal of Caribbean Literatures, 22 June 2009.