Esther Razanadrasoa

[1][2] Born in Antananarivo, Madagascar in 1892, Esther Razanadrasoa was brought up in a Hova environment by a father who was a journalist, writer and composer, and by a mother who inspired her to adopt the pen name of Anja-Z.

[2] Much of her poetry is in the kindriandina tradition, consisting of romantic thoughts and aspirations as frequently practised by young Hova women.

[1] In her novel L'Orage, the Swiss writer Douna Loup tells the story of Esther Razanadrasoa and her lover Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, a budding local poet.

It is based mainly on some 1,200 pages of his diary which revealed that Esther lived an exceptionally free life for a woman in the 1920s, marrying quite late.

[3] Following her untimely death on 14 April 1931, Rabearivelo told of his close relationship with Razanadrasoa and published three of her poems which he had translated into French.