Christian Filostrat

'''Christian Filostrat''' (born 1945) is a senior American diplomat and a National War College alumnus. He grew up in the Bronx, New York, and has a PhD in international affairs. A writer, author of ''The Secret of the African Dictator'',<ref>[http://www.ahlpub.com/Variations_ on_Unjust_Times _Christian_Filostrat.html ''Variations on Unjust Times''], Africana Homestead Legacy Publishers.</ref> ''The Gospel of Thomas'', and ''Jerome's Pillows''. ''The Beggars’ Pursuit'' is a novel about relations between the United States and Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko. '''''Frantz Fanon in the United States''''' is based on discussions Filostrat held with Fanon’s wife, Josie Fanon. The book concludes with comments from Mrs. Fanon about her husband. '''''WOKE -''''' The road to enlightenment that a United States Foreign Service Officer takes. During 1990 – 1991 Filostrat attended the National War College, Washington, D.C.{{cn|date=November 2022}}

==Career== A Négritude specialist, Filostrat researches in the fields of politics and literature in the French-speaking Caribbean and the oral tradition and literature of Africa. Filostrat assesses in what manner European colonialism upended the civilizations of Africa and affected the people’s lives. He examines the disadvantages imposed on Africa by male-dominated societies and indicates that improvement will not be discernible until African women achieve a modicum of equality.

He is widely known for his ''Négritude and Its Revolution'', having collaborated with the Négritude founders, Léon Damas, Léopold Sédar Senghor, and Aimé Césaire to document their works and thoughts. In ''The Beggars’ Pursuit'' he retells their personal lives in Paris circa 1935, their foundation of the Negritude movement, and their activities at the time of the creation of ''L’Etudiant Noir,'' the publication in which Négritude saw first light. He was Damas's sounding board while Damas was composing his last collection of poems, ''Mine de Riens.'' Filostrat organized Damas’s funeral in Washington, D.C., and carried the ashes to Martinique for the eulogy by Aimé Césaire.<ref>"Hommage posthume à Léon-Gontran Damas", ''Présence africaine'', 1979, p 134.</ref>

Filostrat is the author of ''Racial Consciousness and the Social Revolution of Aimé Césaire'' and at the request of President Senghor lectured on the subject at the University of the Mutants on Gorée island in Senegal in 1980. ''In Negritude Agonistes'', Filostrat introduces issue No. 3 (May–June 1935) of ''L'Etudiant Noir, Journal Mensuel de l'Association des Étudiants Martiniquais en France'' (The Black Student, Monthly Journal of the Martiniquan Student Association in France),<ref>Christian Filostrat, ''Negritude Agonistes, Assimilation Against Nationalism in the French-Speaking Caribbean and Guyana'' (Cherry Hill, NJ: Africana Homestead Legacy Publishers, 2009), pp. 123-128.</ref> in which Aimé Césaire coined the expression and defined the concept of Négritude. Christopher l. Miller, Frederick Clifford Ford Professor of African American Studies and French at Yale University, said: "In 2008 Christian Filostrat published a book that contains negritude’s missing link: an article by Césaire in ''L’étudiant noir'', number 3, May–June 1935."<ref>Christopher l. Miller, "The (Revised) Birth of Negritude: Communist Revolution and "the Immanent Negro" in 1935 (''PMLA'', Vol. 125, No. 3, May 2010), p. 743.</ref>

==Bibliography== * ''The Beggars' Pursuit'', 2007 ({{ISBN|0977090477}}) * ''Negritude Agonistes'', 2008 ({{ISBN|0981893929}}) * ''The Gospel of Thomas'', 2011 ({{ISBN|0983115125}}) * ''Jerome's Pillows'', 2015 ({{ISBN|193762272X}}) * ''The Secret of the African Dictator'', 2022 ({{ISBN|0692614028}}) * ''Frantz Fanon in the United States'' 2021 (ISBN B09NS4SMJ8) * ''WOKE'' 2023 (ASIN: B0CMZV9BDH)

==References== ;Notes {{reflist}} ;Bibliography  * "Frantz Fanon" www.frantzfanon.com

==External links== *[https://sites.google.com/site/httpwwwleondamasminederiencom/ Poésie de Léon G. Damas, "Mine de Riens".] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20150211144857/http://www.negritude-agonistes.com/ Christian Filostrat, "Négritude Agonistes".] *[http://www.chrisfilostrat.com/ Christian Filostrat, "The Stories of Chris Filostrat".] *[https://www.academia.edu/37370361/N%C3%89GRITUDE_THE_ORIGIN "NÉGRITUDE THE ORIGIN".] *["Christian Filostrat Blog" https://www.blogger.com/profile/09100255585680903416 ]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Filostrat, Christian}} Category:1945 births Category:American diplomats Category:American non-fiction writers Category:Living people