Rabearivelo, Jean-Joseph

Rabearivelo, Jean-Joseph

 

Born Mar. 4, 1901, in Tananarive; died there June 22, 1937. Malagasy poet.

Rabearivelo did not receive a formal education. He worked as a proofreader in a printing house. The founder of Madagascar’s French-language poetry, he was influenced by French poetry. Examples of his works are the collections Cup of Ashes (1924), Sylphs (1927), Books (1928), Nearly Dreams (1934), and Overheard at Night (1935). Only in Old Songs of the Imerina Country (published 1937) did he overcome European influences: here he reproduced the folk genre of the hain-teny.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
[Stikhi.] In the collection V ritmakh tam-tama. Foreword by E. L. Gal’perina. Moscow, 1961.
[Stikhi.] In Golosa afrikanskikh poetov. Moscow, 1968.
[Stikhi.] In Poeziia Afriki. Moscow, 1973.

REFERENCES

In Sovremmennye literatury Afriki. (Vostochnaia i luzhnaia Afrika.) Moscow, 1974.
Baudry, R. J.-J. Rabearivelo et la mort. Paris, 1958.