The Essay: Africa in the City

Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Africa in the City: Fort-de-France

Fort-de-France

Africa in the City

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Africa in the City, Fort-de-France

Lindsay Johns's tour of cities influenced by Africa continues in Fort-de-France.

Lindsay Johns's tour of cities influenced by Africa continues in Fort-de-France, the capital of the Caribbean island of Martinique.

Writer and broadcaster Lindsay Johns continues his tour of great cities influenced by their relationship with Africa in Fort-de-France, the capital of the Caribbean island of Martinique.

On an island where, as he puts it, Gallic efficiency and Cartesian rigour rub shoulders with local Creole flavour, all in the enervating tropical heat, Lindsay examines the question of identity. Fort-de-France, says Lindsay, looks to Paris for her modus vivendi and to Africa for her raison d’être. So was the decision of Martinique’s most famous son - the poet, playwright, polymath, founder of the Negritude literary movement, politician and former Mayor of Fort-de-France, Aimé Césaire - to stave off independence and remain part of France, the right one? On his walk around the city Lindsay encounters French waiters, BMW-driving witch doctors, and a decapitated lady, as he considers this question.

Producer: Giles Edwards.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Lindsay Johns takes a tour of five cities which have been influenced by African migration.

Lindsay Johns introduces his new series of essays on great cities which have been influenced by African migration.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Essay

Africa in the City

Fort-de-France

Genres

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3