Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, born Joseph-Casimir Rabearivelo, was a Malagasy poet who is widely considered to be Africa's first modern poet and the greatest literary artist of Madagascar. Part of the first Malagasy generation raised under French colonization, Rabearivelo grew up impoverished and failed to complete secondary education. His passion for French literature and traditional Malagasy oral poetry (hainteny) prompted him to read extensively and educate himself on a variety of subjects, including the French language and its poetic and prose traditions. He published his first poems as an adolescent in local literary reviews, soon obtaining employment at a publishing house where he worked as a proofreader and editor of its literary journals. He published numerous poetry anthologies in French and Malagasy as well as literary critiques, an opera, and two novels.
Rabearivelo, ca. 1930
Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo high school in Antananarivo
Malagasy is an Austronesian language and dialect continuum spoken in Madagascar. The standard variety, called Official Malagasy, is an official language of Madagascar alongside French.
Sorabe Malagasy Arabic script
Malagasy version of the Book of Mormon, in Latin script with the letter ô
Malagasy lexicon (1773) (Collection BULAC Paris)