Guy Tirolien (; February 13, 1917 – March 8, 1988) was a Guadeloupean poet. He was born in Point-à-Pitre and died at the age of 71 in

Marie-Galante Marie-Galante ( gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Mawigalant) is one of the islands that form Guadeloupe, an overseas department of France. Marie-Galante has a land area of . It had 11,528 inhabitants at the start of 2013, but by the start of 2018 ...

Biography

Guy Tirolien was born in Point-à-Pitre,

Guadelope Guadeloupe (; ; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Gwadloup, ) is an archipelago and overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands—Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galante, La Désirade, and the ...

to Furcie Tirolen and Léontine Alméda Colonneau. He was a part of the

Négritude ''Négritude'' (from French "Nègre" and "-itude" to denote a condition that can be translated as "Blackness") is a framework of critique and literary theory, developed mainly by francophone intellectuals, writers, and politicians of the African ...

ideological movement. He was also a

colonial Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French Colonial * Spanish Colonial architecture Automobiles * Colonial (1920 au ...

administrator in

Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...

and

Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mali ...

, where he met several figures of the

Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the t ...

. However, he was taken prisoner during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Afterwards, he worked as an international civil servant, representing the UN, notably in

and

Gabon Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north ...

. He is the grandfather of singer-songwriter

Malika Tirolien Malika Tirolien is a Montreal-based singer-songwriter and pianist. She sang on the Grammy Award winning album '' Family Dinner – Volume 1'' by Snarky Puppy. Biography Malika was born in Marie-Galante, Guadeloupe, and grew up in an artistic ...

Work

Tirolen is known as the author of "''Prière d'un petit enfant nègre''" (1943), a poem included in his book "Balles d'or" published by

Présence Africaine ''Présence Africaine'' is a pan-African quarterly cultural, political, and literary magazine, published in Paris, France, and founded by Alioune Diop in 1947. In 1949, ''Présence Africaine'' expanded to include a publishing house and a bookstore ...

. The poem is about a black child who does not want to go to the white school. He also wrote "Feuilles vivantes au matin" under the same publisher.

Selected works

* ''Balles d'or'', published by Présence Africaine in 1961 and 1995 * ''Feuilles vivantes au matin'', published by Présence Africaine in 1977 * ''De Marie-Galante à une poétique afro-antillaise'', published by L'Harmattan, collected by Monde Caraïbe 1917 births 1988 deaths Guadeloupean poets 20th-century French poets French male poets 20th-century French male writers {{Guadeloupe-bio-stub