In 1948, Leopold Sedar Senghor edited an anthology of new Black and Malagasy poetry in French. Published in Paris with a famous preface by Jean-Paul Sartre, it placed African and diasporic poets before a metropolitan readership. The anthology asserted that colonised Black writers could transform the coloniser's language.

The anthology gave Negritude poetry international visibility and helped poets articulate Black pride, anti-colonial consciousness, and cultural memory. Its influence reached Caribbean, African, and African American writers who debated whether liberation required reclaiming, remaking, or rejecting European literary forms.