Léon Damas was born in
Cayenne,
French Guiana, to Ernest Damas, a
mulatto of European and African descent, and Bathilde Damas, a Metisse of Native American and African ancestry. In 1924, Damas was sent to
Martinique to attend the Lycée Victor Schoelcher (a secondary school), where he would meet his lifelong friend and collaborator
Aimé Césaire. In 1929, Damas moved to
Paris, France, to continue his studies. While he studied law under guidance from his parents, his diverse array of courses in other topics like anthropology, history, and literature sparked his interest in radical politics. There, he reunited with Césaire and was introduced to
Léopold Senghor. In 1935, the three young men published the first issue of the literary review ''
L'Étudiant noir'' (The Black Student), which provided the foundation for what is now known as the
Négritude Movement, a literary and ideological movement of French-speaking black intellectuals that rejects the political, social and moral domination of the West. In 1937, Damas published his first volume of poetry,
Pigments. The collection reflected his unique literary style, using the French colonial language to break boundaries of verse, meter, and metaphor.
Pigments touches on topics of racism, broader issues in the Western colonial culture, and more. Through
Pigments, Damas explored the internalized racism and oppression that occurred within the diaspora, partly paving the way for
Frantz Fanon's "colonized personality", explored in his seminal work,
The Wretched of the Earth. Though
Pigments was eventually banned by the French government as a "threat to the security of the state", before its removal, it was translated and distributed across several countries and continents. He enlisted in the
French Army during
World War II, and later was elected to the
French National Assembly (1948–51) as a deputy from Guiana. In the following years, Damas traveled and lectured widely in Africa, the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean. He also served as the contributing editor of
Présence Africaine, one of the most respected journals of Black studies, and as senior adviser and
UNESCO delegate for the
Society of African Culture. In 1970, Damas and his Brazilian-born wife Marietta moved to
Washington, D.C., to take a summer teaching job at
Georgetown University. During the last years of his life, he taught at
Howard University in Washington, D.C., and served as acting director of the school's African Studies program. He died on January 22, 1978, in Washington, and was buried in Guyana. Although the political aspect of his poetry held less appeal in the later years of the 20th century, Damas's reputation was on the rise. His poems, which sometimes experimented with typography and with the sound of words, were astonishingly modern for their time, and they seemed to anticipate the black poetry, both English and French, of a much later timeframe. ==Works==