part 3. 1931–1945: prewar and war poetryidea of the book. Jabès’s dialogic form and intense moral questioning,
which speak not just to the diasporic experience but to the overwhelming
problems of contemporary political life, seem more urgent than ever.
The influx of Francophone writers from Algeria, Haiti, Martinique,
the Maghreb, Canada, and other countries increased during this period,
as did their influence: we have only to think of Mansour, who was born in
England and was half Egyptian; of Edmond Jabès and Andrée Chédid,
also Egyptian; of Aimé and Suzanne Césaire, from Martinique; of Mo-
hammed Dib from Algeria; of Dora Maar, who was half Yugoslavian; and
of so many other poets of this era. Cultural cross exchanges strengthened
the form and content, the import and impact of French poetry in the
twentieth century. French poetry became so infused by poetic spirit be-
yond the Hexagon that it could never again be accused of parochialism.
During the years surrounding the war, the frontiers of the French poetic
establishment finally began to open to what we might think of as a great
otherness—women poets and poets from other lands. That spirit of gen-
erosity has become increasingly felt.
Note- René Char, Feuillets d’Hypnos, in Fureur et mystère (Paris: Poésie/Gallimard, 1967),
p. 94.