In a statement, the publishing house "Mémoire d’encrier", announces the disappearance of Haitian poet, Raymond Chassagne, occurred early Monday, May 27 in Montreal at the age of 89, following his hospitalization, and offers its condolences to his children, Alex, Karen and Boris.

Poet, essayist, Raymond Chassagne is the author of a work of high demand, which goes from the analytical prose to the poetic writing. The nodal point of his work is the Haitian adventure, which he defines as "a journey laden with challenges : the denaturation of the creation of a country, the mythical subsequences and the difficulties encountered in the construction of a true citizenship."

In its statement the publishing house recalls that "His poems were read and engraved on disc by his friend and comrade of exile, the poet Anthony Phelps with whom he 'tracked' in Montreal, in a beautiful friendship that gave meaning to their struggle against dictatorship, for the poetry and for the awakening of the homeland.

In his latest collection of poems, 'Éloge du paladin' (2012), Raymond Chassagne watched 'the voice of the troubadours of the past or of paladins poets, whom continue to propose or routes a little less industrialized, clearer, more accessible, more human in any case, and through which man could finally find its true value.'

He succeeded in mixing his voice to that of the great poets of the Americas : Saint-John Perse, Léon Gontran Damas, Aimé Césaire, Édouard Glissant. It is the latter of these paladins, attached to the words of the tribe. His passion is his country. The question of Raymond Chassagne is known to all : How to avoid this 'gradual exhaustion of hope' in order to find the way for a living together ? [...]

He is not only a poet, but a friend that we lose."

Learn more about Raymond Chassagne :

Born February 13, 1924 in Jérémie (Haiti), Raymond Chassagne is a former Army officer, who experienced exile after a political trial and imprisonment of nine months in the prisons of François Duvalier. Staying in the United States from 1959 to 1966 and then to Canada, where he obtained a master's degree at McGill University in 1975 with a thesis on the poetry work of Aimé Césaire. He continued his studies at the University of Montreal and prepares a doctoral thesis on the work of Édouard Glissant in 1979. He teaches literature at Quebec until his return to Haiti in 1979. He gives courses in literature and methodology at the State University of Haiti in the 1980s.

HL/ HaitiLibre