Jean Albany

Albany, Jean (1917-84). Poet from Reunion. Zamal (1951), Albany's first collection, is rightly regarded as breaking with a long-standing tradition of exoticism and out-moded Parnassianism in the literature of Reunion [see Mauritius And Reunion]. He was an early exponent of créolie (a neologism of Albany's), a localized form of négritude, which sought to articulate an authentic réunionnais consciousness and to break with French models. He wrote a number of collections of poetry in both French and Creole in addition to a P'tit Glossaire Piment de mots créoles (1974) and a Supplément (1983), beautifully illustrated dictionaries of a personal and literary kind. For non-Creole speakers these provide not only a particularly intimate access to Albany's Creole poems but to much of the island's poetry in that language.

[Belinda Jack]