Abstract

SCHURMANS, Fabrice. Between History and Fiction: The Failure of the Exceptional Man. Une Saison au Congo (Aimé Césaire) and Lumumba (Raoul Peck). Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais [online]. 2015, n.106, pp.85-104. ISSN 2182-7435.  https://doi.org/10.4000/rccs.5888.

This essay examines how Aimé Césaire’s tragedy Une Saison au Congo [A Season in the Congo] and Raoul Peck’s film Lumumba contribute to the production of historical discourse about the death of Patrice Lumumba. In the first part, I discuss the relationship between fiction and History in light of the current debates on the capacity of the novel to tell History, as well as on History’s contributions to fiction. In the second section, the article examines the respective historical contexts of the play and the film in order to bolster a comparative analysis of both works of fiction. Finally, the third part will highlight how Césaire and Peck represent Lumumba and critically reassess and engage with the Belgian colonial past.

Keywords : Aimé Césaire (1913-2008); cinema; colonial history; fiction; Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961); Raoul Peck (1953-).

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