1. Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, born Joseph-Casimir Rabearivelo, was a Malagasy poet who is widely considered to be Africa's first modern poet and the greatest literary artist of Madagascar.
43 Facts About Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo
1. 2.
Part of the first Malagasy generation raised under French colonization, Rabearivelo grew up impoverished and failed to complete secondary education.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo published his first poems as an adolescent in local literary reviews, soon obtaining employment at a publishing house where he worked as a proofreader and editor of its literary journals.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo published numerous poetry anthologies in French and Malagasy as well as literary critiques, an opera, and two novels.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo suffered a series of personal and professional disappointments, including the death of his daughter, the French authorities' decision to exclude him from the list of exhibitors at the Universal Exposition in Paris, and growing personal debt worsened by his opium addiction and philandering.
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The death of Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo occurred just prior to the emergence of the Negritude movement, by which time the poet had established an international reputation among literary figures such as Leopold Sedar Senghor as Africa's first modern poet.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo's works are a focus of ongoing academic study.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, born Joseph-Casimir on 4 March 1901 or 1903 in Ambatofotsy, Madagascar, was the only child of an unwed mother descended from the Zanadralambo caste of the Merina andriana.
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Madagascar had been a French colony for less than a decade when Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo was born, situating him among the first generation of Malagasy to grow up under the colonial system.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo first studied at the Freres des Ecoles Chretiennes school in the affluent neighborhood of Andohalo, then transferred to the prestigious College Saint-Michel, where he was expelled for lack of discipline, poor academic performance, and his reluctance to become religiously observant.
11.
Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo ended his studies at Ecole Flacourt in 1915.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo is believed to have published his first poems at age 14 in the literary review Vakio Ity under the pen name K Verbal.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo changed his name to Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo to have the same initials as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, while continuing to occasionally use pseudonyms, including "Amance Valmond" and "Jean Osme".
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo was particularly attracted to poets and writers who were outcasts in their own society, including Baudelaire and Rimbaud.
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In 1920, Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo was hired as an assistant librarian at the Cercle de l'Union social club.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo began to correspond with a wide range of writers around the world, including Andre Gide, Paul Valery, Jean Amrouche, Paul Claudel, and Valery Larbaud, and spent large sums to buy books and ship them to Madagascar.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo published his second and third poetry anthologies, Sylves and Volumes, in 1927 and 1928 respectively.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo published his second historical novel in 1928, L'interference, which depicts the life of a noble family from the last years of the Imerina monarchy before French colonization.
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In 1926, Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo married Mary Razafitrimo, the daughter of a local photographer, with whom he would have five children.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo published two more anthologies of thirty poems each: Presque-Songes and Traduit de la nuit.
21.
Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo wrote Madagascar's first and only opera, Imaitsoanala, named for the legendary heroine mother of King Ralambo; it was set to music composed by Andrianary Ratianarivo and was performed by Ratianarivo's Troupe Jeanette at the Municipal Theater of Isotry in Antananarivo.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo was deeply affected by this loss and was plunged into grief from which he never recovered.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo's last daughter, who was born in 1936, he named Velomboahangy.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo was imprisoned for three days for failing to pay taxes, a penalty from which he should have been exempted due to his status as a low-ranking employee of the colonial administration.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo had been promised that he would represent Madagascar at the 1937 Universal Exposition in Paris, but in May, the colonial authorities informed him that he would not be part of the island's delegation.
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Consequently, Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo became embittered toward France and its colonial message of assimilation, a sentiment strongly expressed in his journals.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo was likewise rejected by Malagasy high society, who condemned his unconventional behavior and views, particularly in light of his role as husband and father.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo's compatriots held him in contempt for his perceived eagerness to embrace the French colonial rule and culture.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo committed suicide by cyanide poisoning on the afternoon of 22 June 1937.
30.
The morning of his suicide, Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo completed several unfinished works; he then took fourteen 250-milligram quinine capsules with water at 1:53 pm, followed at 2:37 pm by ten grams of potassium cyanide.
31.
Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo identified himself and his work as post-symbolist in the early part of his artistic career.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo's poems become more daring, free, and complex, while reflecting greater doubt.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo has long been considered the first modern poet of Africa.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo has been described by Radio France Internationale journalist Tirthankar Chanda as "the founder of the African francophonie" and "the enfant terrible of French literature".
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo is the most internationally famous and influential Malagasy literary figure.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo was described by academic Claire Riffard as "one of the principal founders of contemporary Malagasy literature", and following national independence in 1960, the government of Madagascar affirmed his cultural contributions by promoting him as the island's national writer.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo struggled throughout his life to reconcile his identity as Malagasy with his aspiration toward French assimilation and connection with the greater universal human experience.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo has been depicted as a martyr figure as a result of his suicide following the refusal of French authorities to grant him permission to go to France.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo has been the subject of a significant number of books and conferences; on the fiftieth anniversary of his death, his work was commemorated at events organized in North America, Europe and Africa, including a week-long conference at the University of Antananarivo.
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The Lycee Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo was inaugurated in central Antananarivo on 21 December 1946 in honor of the poet.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo was included in the seminal volume of poetry of the Negritude movement, Leopold Senghor's Anthologie de la nouvelle poesie negre et malgache, published in 1948.
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Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo has inspired many Malagasy writers and poets after him, including Elie Rajaonarison, an exemplar of the new wave of Malagasy poetry.
43.
The remaining 1,000 pages of materials produced by Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo have been published in digital format.