Tchicaya U Tam’si

Congolese poet
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Also known as: Gérald Félix Tchicaya
Quick Facts
Pseudonym of:
Gérald Félix Tchicaya
Born:
August 25, 1931, Mpili, near Brazzaville, French Equatorial Africa [now in Congo]
Died:
April 21 or 22, 1988, Bazancourt, Oise, France
Also Known As:
Gérald Félix Tchicaya
Movement / Style:
Negritude
Surrealism

Tchicaya U Tam’si (born August 25, 1931, Mpili, near Brazzaville, French Equatorial Africa [now in Congo]—died April 21 or 22, 1988, Bazancourt, Oise, France) was a Congolese French-language writer and poet whose work explores the relationships between victor and victim.

As the son of the Congolese first deputy to the French National Assembly, Tchicaya finished his secondary school in Orléans and Paris. When Belgian Congo became independent, Tchicaya went to Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) as chief editor of a new daily paper (which lasted one week). From 1960 he worked with UNESCO in Paris.

Tchicaya’s poetry—much influenced by Surrealism and Negritude—includes Le Mauvais Sang (1955; “Bad Blood”), Feu de brousse (1957; Brush Fire), À triche-coeur (1960; “A Game of Cheat-Heart”), Épitomé (1962), Le Ventre (1964; “The Belly”), L’Arc musical (1969; “The Bow Harp”), Selected Poems (1970), and La Veste d’intérieur (1977; “The Inner Failure”). He also published Légendes africaines (1969; “African Stories”), a collection of folktales. His later works include a book of short stories, a novel, and two plays.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) only confirmed photograph of Emily Dickinson. 1978 scan of a Daguerreotype. ca. 1847; in the Amherst College Archives. American poet. See Notes:
Britannica Quiz
Poetry: First Lines

His poetry relates, through rich and varied imagery, the broken heritage of the African present and the roles of the Roman Catholic church, French colonialism, and education. Through fierce and startling symbols repetitively used like devices in oral African literature, Tchicaya expanded his verse to make large statements about life.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.