The focus of this essay is on the second of two recent translations of the work of the prominent Senegalese intellectual, anticolonialist, and statesman, Léopold Sédar Senghor: The Essential Senghor: African Philosophy and Black Aesthetics (Duke University Press, 2026). I wrote about the first one here. Both translations seek to bring the prose of Senghor found in his five Liberté books to Anglophone audiences.
Until now, much of Senghor’s writings in prose have not been translated into English and it is difficult for Anglophone audiences to get a comprehensive understanding of Senghor without reading these texts. While the first translated volume focused on his political writings, this second one is more comprehensive, seeking to capture the broader dynamics of Senghor’s thought, especially his philosophy and aesthetics, rooting it in his African background. In fact, the authors of this translation describe it as “a critical edition” because they not only translated the text but also provided relevant missing citations, corrected errors, and made other updates.
The book includes seminal texts from Liberté 1, 3, and 5, stretching from 1937 to 1983, from Senghor’s first published prose to texts that were published after he resigned from the presidency in 1980. They are arranged in thematic rather than chronological order because Senghor’s thought does not follow a progressive development. Rather, it is “cyclical and recursive,” according to the editors, so that we may not speak of an “early” or “late” Senghor (p. 19).
One of the most interesting aspects of the book is that it is a meditation on the act of translation. In fact, it frames Senghor’s life and work as acts of translation that preceded the postcolonial emphasis on the importance of translation in African studies. He brought Wolof, Sereer, and Pulaar languages and cultures into conversation with French language and culture in his philosophical and aesthetic ruminations. By doing this, he was among the first to show that the African experience, even within Africa, cannot be spoken in just one language. The meeting of languages and cultures is even more complicated when a colonial language, such as French or English, is added. These colonial languages need to be brought into conversation with indigenous languages in anticolonial or decolonial praxis. It is in the process of translation that colonized subjects begin to find themselves.
The act of translation is captured in the central idea of métissage which animates Senghor’s Negritude. Métissage bespeaks the mixing that is born of exchanges and self-understanding. While the meeting of peoples may lead to conflict, potential peaceful co-existence is based on conciliation often rooted in understanding each other. Such understanding is rooted in translation.
Given that Senghor’s life and work are dynamics of translation, the editors conclude that “Senghor does not fit neatly into the expectations of what an anti-, post-, or decolonial writer or thinker should be. He does not readily align with the categories of the militant, the revolutionary, or the radical” (p. 3). Translation reveals nuances that need to be accounted for. It reveals connections that are not often taken seriously when people seek to live or work only in silos. Making these connections was central to Senghor’s intellectual and political life. In fact, the translators of Senghor’s writings ruminate on how their own collaboration challenges disciplinary silos, engaging “areas of inquiry that are mutually enriching” (p. xi).
Because Senghor does not easily fit today’s categories, even a translation of his prose may not gain traction. This is especially so given that current postcolonial, anticolonial, and decolonial studies seem to focus on the radical, on people like Frantz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, and others who are seen to have called for decolonial options that repudiate Senghor’s dialogical imagination. In this climate, does a non-radical intellectual and politician have a place? Does translation as an anticolonial or decolonial activity have traction? Does a translated life that brings African philosophy and aesthetics into conversation with western life and thought hold any traction?
The translators of this book think so. That is why they call on scholars of African studies to take a clearer look at Senghor’s prose. They do not portray Senghor as an ideal figure. They present him with his warts and all, but they also insist that a new engagement with Senghor’s prose would alert Africanists to the pioneering nature of Senghor’s work. He was a politician, yes, but he was also an intellectual of great acumen who blazed the trail in the study not only of African languages but also in enacting the plurilingual nature of being African in the world.
In other words, Senghor demonstrates that African is not spoken in only one language. Indeed, African is spoken not only in one African language but also not only in one colonial language. African is not spoken only in Pulaar or Sereer, just as it is not spoken only in French or English. It is spoken in the translation of languages and lives. To be African is to be multilingual. To be African is to transcend the border of language – and perhaps the border of politics. That is probably why the last piece in the book deals with Senghor’s ruminations on the dialogue of cultures. The translated life is perhaps a dialogical life.
While The Essential Senghor frames Senghor’s work using the idea of translation, one of the benefits of the broad sweep of the texts it translates is that it captures the spiritual context of Senghor’s intellectual and political life. This spiritual context is captured in Senghor’s description of African cultures or civilization. Senghor often presents African life as animated by a spiritual ontology that is cosmic in scale, beginning with God and descending into the world. It is this ontology that shapes African being in the world, a being rooted in what he describes as surreality (p. 37). In this light, Africans do not focus on the appearance or sign of things but rather on the meaning of things. It is a way of life that is metaphysically grounded.
While the translation of Senghor’s prose is welcome, it should not replace or displace the importance of Senghor’s poetry in his corpus. It is true that the failure to engage Senghor’s prose, especially as found in his Liberté series, would skew one’s view of his life and work. However, engaging his prose should not lead one to neglect engaging his poetry. They should be complementary rather than in competition. Senghor’s poetry illuminates his negritude and his intellectual and political life as well. What he says in these essays is not substantially different from what he says in the poems even though these essays provide insight into his intellectual and political life and the context in which to understand his poems.
