Édouard Glissant, who was born in Martinique, educated at the Sorbonne, and profoundly involved in anticolonial movements of the fifties and sixties. One of Glissant’s main projects was an exploration of the word “opacity.” Glissant defined it as a right to not have to be understood on others’ terms, a right to be misunderstood if need be. The argument was rooted in linguistic considerations: it was a stance against certain expectations of transparency embedded in the French language. Glissant sought to defend the opacity, obscurity, and inscrutability of Caribbean blacks and other marginalized peoples. External pressures insisted on everything being illuminated, simplified, and explained. Glissant’s response: no.

— Teju Cole, Known and Strange Things, Faber & Faber, Ch. A True Picture of Black Skin, 2016