Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo

Considered Africa’s first major poet in French language, Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo was born Joseph-Casimir Rabearivelo in Tananarive, Madagascar, in 1901. He worked as a librarian and in publishing. In the 1930s, he started Capricorne, a literary journal, and joined “Hitady ny Very” (“The Search for Lost Values”), a literary collective of Malagasy poets and writers. His oeuvre includes short stories, plays, novels, and about nine collections of poetry. Léopold Sédar Senghor included some of his poems in Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache (1948). Upon becoming independent in 1960, Madagascar declared him the national poet. He died in 1937.