The Archipelago Conversations

A revival of the Renaissance genre of the same name, isolarii (meaning 'island texts') is a trés petit publication; each issue of which focuses on a different, stand-alone theme or idea.

The sixth edition is titled ‘The Archipelago Conversations’ and is based on 15 years of conversations between Caribbean philosopher Édouard Glissant and his friend Hans Ulrich Obrist. It marks the tenth anniversary of Glissant's passing. Translation by Emma Ramadan.

Hans Ulrich Obrist met the Martinique-born philosopher, poet, and revolutionary Édouard Glissant in the mid-nineties; the encounter influenced the direction of Obrist's work for years to come. As one of today's most prolific producers of culture, Obrist has left an indelible mark and Glissant, in part, through him. Throughout 2021, during the pandemic and ten years after Glissant's death, Obrist has edited, reworked, and arranged their conversations in their entirety for the first time. THE ARCHIPELAGO CONVERSATIONS is the result: a book designed to introduce the most important philosopher of the 21st Century to a broad, public audience - a ready-to-hand tool for building an interdependent Earth.

Hans Ulrich Obrist (1968) is artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries in London. Prior to this, he was the curator of the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. He has curated more than three hundred shows since 1991. Obrist's recent publications include Lives of the Artists, Lives of the Architects (2015), Mondialité (2017), Somewhere Totally Else (2018), The Extreme Self: Age of You (2021).

Édouard Glissant (1928 - 2011) was a French writer, poet, philosopher, and literary critic from Martinique. He is widely recognised as one of the most influential figures in Caribbean thought and cultural commentary and Francophone literature. Glissant was a disciple and fellow countryman of the poet Aimé Césaire, who founded the Negritude movement to promote an African culture free of all colonial influences. This led him into political action, founding The Antillean-Guyanese Front with other writers, such as Béville and Corsnay Marie-Joseph, and fought for the independence of the French West Indies and Guiana from France's rule. He became the father-figure for the Créolité group of writers that includes Patrick Chamoiseau and Raphaël Confiant.