It is hard to believe that a year has passed since Edouard Glissant passed away on February 3, 2011. [See previous post Edouard Glissant Passed Away Today and Guardian Obituary: Edouard Glissant.] Yesterday, at the opening of the Festival des Résistances, writer Patrick Chamoiseau paid tribute to Edouard Glissant with his piece “Glissant, ce guerrier: 5 récitations en résistance” [Glissant, This Warrior: 5 Recitations of Resistance].

The tribute to the great poet continues this weekend and runs until Sunday, February 5 at Centre culturel La Clef, located at 20 rue de la Clef, in Paris, France. The festival is sponsored by Mediapart and l’Institut du Tout-Monde, and other entities. Participants include Patrick Chamoiseau, Jade Lindgaard, Francis Hallé, Edwy Plenel, Alain Ménil, Nicole Lapierre, Hugo Vitrani, Julieta Hanono, Edwy Plenel, Cynthia Fleury, and Gérard Mordillat, among others.

Here is an excerpt of Chamoiseau’s “5 récitations en résistance”:  “Real strength is never content simply with being against, even if immediate opposition (that of the generous rebel) is always necessary, and always beneficial. Real strength creates a somewhere else; it goes beyond the gesture of the rebel to give birth to the Warrior. The Warrior opposes, not by reversing the terms of domination, or by pushing back the fire of oppression, but rather by imagining something else, another horizon, another world; by cultivating the insurrection of another imaginary. That is why there is real resistance only in and through creation. This is why the most determined warriors are Warriors of the Imagination.”

For Chamoiseau’s complete lecture (in French), see http://www.facebook.com/#!/notes/patrick-chamoiseau/3-fevrier-2012-glissant-ce-guerrier/10150633457776212