The Municipality of Verson announced that the house of the first Senegalese president, poet, member of the Académie Française, and négritude philosopher, Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906-2001) in Verson, northwest France, will be open to public visits.
“The municipality has become the official owner of Senghor’s house, garden and furniture as of July 7, in addition to around 25 m³ of handwritten archives, in accordance with the will of Colette Senghor, the second wife of the Senegalese politician. The finalization of inheritance documents required two years and a half,” Marie-Hélène Brioul, deputy mayor of Verson, told Agence France Press (AFP).
The former first lady, originally from the French Normandie, said in her will that she wants “the poet’s house to remain alive and open to the public,” stated the municipality board.
Since 1957, the Senghor couple used to spend their summer vacations in Verson every year, then decided to permanently settle there in the early 1980s, according to the board.
The poet and member of the Académie Française passed away in Verson, in 2001. He was born in 1906, in the Joal-Fadiouth town, where his childhood house was turned into a museum. His wife and muse Colette Senghor died in Verson in 2019.
As part of the European Heritage Days celebrations, guided tours in the white stone house including a visit to the poet’s large garden, are scheduled on September 17-18.
According to Brioul, the house includes some “notebooks” that belonged to the poet, but most of the archives Verson has inherited cannot be displayed to the public yet, because the documents preserved in a warehouse in Bretteville-sur-Odon - a town between Verson and Caen - require accurate analysis.
The documents include correspondences exchanged with presidents of other nations and might feature some poetry-related writings, according to Brioul.
“The municipality has been receiving requests from researchers interested in the first poetry drafts of Senghor,” she added.
The deputy mayor noted that the Senegalese poet’s works are available in France’s national library.
The municipal board is considering opening the house to the public on the long term.
