Dernière escale by Léon-Gontran Damas: On a Playlet on the Native American in France

This article focuses on the posthumous collection by the poet Léon-Gontran Damas, Mine de riens, re-titled Dernière escale and published in 2012. Alternating between the short form of the haiku and the long form, this collection is close to a playlet. In it, Damas mocks three phenomena that have marked France: the image of the Other as inferior, the Westerner represented as superior to Guyanese customs, and colonial zoos at world exhibitions. In his work, the poet calls for a reconsideration of the image of Native Americans and is also considered as a precursor of creolisation.