CÉSAIRE (Aimé). Cahier d'un retour au pays natal. Preface by André Breton. Paris: Bordas, 1947. - In-12, dark green half-maroquin with wide corners, ribbed spine, gilt head, untrimmed, cover and spine preserved (J. F. Barbance, sr. de Yseux-Simier). First French edition, following a Spanish-language version published in 1943 and a bilingual French-English edition also published in New York in 1947. It includes a preface by André Breton and a frontispiece reproducing a work by Wifredo Lam in black. With this text, written between 1936 and 1939, Aimé Césaire, poet and politician from Martinique, founded the concept of negritude, a key movement for civil rights and black pride. This long poem in free verse describes the return of a disillusioned narrator to Martinique, confronted with the apathy of his people under the colonial legacy. Through a quest for identity, he explores various "masks" (liberator, African heir, Caribbean spokesman), all deemed insufficient. Negritude appears not as a fixed definition, but as an active process: accepting both African heritage and the reality of slavery in order to rebuild oneself. The poem ends with a realization: it is by assuming his own history, however painful, that the narrator can finally speak for his people and encourage them to rise again. ONE OF 50 NUMBERED EXEMPLIES ON LAFUMA PURE FIL PAPER (no. 13), the only edition on large paper. A very well-bound copy by Jean-François Barbance. Minor rubbing to nerves.