Rabearivelo's early period of modernist-inspired poetry showed skill and attracted critical attention, but adhered strictly to traditional genre conventions.

Despite increasing critical attention in international poetry reviews, Rabearivelo was never afforded access to the elite social circles of colonial Madagascar.

Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, born Joseph-Casimir on 4 March 1901 or 1903 in Ambatofotsy (north of Antananarivo), Madagascar, was the only child of an unwed mother descended from the Zanadralambo ("sons of Ralambo") caste of the Merina andriana (nobles).

[1][2] When the French colonized Madagascar in 1897, Merina nobles including Rabearivelo's mother lost the privileges, prestige, and wealth to which they had been entitled under the former monarchy, the Kingdom of Imerina.

[2] He first studied at the Frères des Écoles Chrétiennes school in the affluent neighborhood of Andohalo,[1] then transferred to the prestigious Collège Saint-Michel, where he was expelled for lack of discipline, poor academic performance,[2] and his reluctance to become religiously observant.

[2] After leaving school, he worked a variety of low-skilled jobs, including as a lace designer,[1] an errand boy, and a secretary and interpreter to a district administrator.

[1] He changed his name to Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo to have the same initials as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, while continuing to occasionally use pseudonyms, including "Amance Valmond" and "Jean Osmé".

[1] This publication launched him into the intellectual and cultural circles of Antananarivo high society, where he established himself as Madagascar's leader not only in poetry and prose, but as an esteemed journalist, art critic, translator, and writer of essays and plays.

[2] In 1925, he wrote a historical novel called L'Aube rouge ("The Red Dawn") about the last years of the Kingdom of Imerina and the beginning of the Franco-Hova wars.

He also published his second historical novel in 1928, L'interférence ("Interference"), which depicts the life of a noble family from the last years of the Imerina monarchy before French colonization.

[1] In 1931, Rabearivelo's lover, the Malagasy writer Esther Razanadrasoa, died after taking abortive substances to terminate a pregnancy by the poet.

[2] On 19 June 1937, a French friend informed him that his ambition to hold a higher official role within the administrative authority could never materialize as he was largely self-educated and lacked the required diplomas.

Having staked his future on a government career, Rabearivelo began to muse about his own death in his journal, writing "Perhaps one needs to die to be found sincere".

When reading Rabearivelo, unlike many other Surrealist-influenced modern poets, we never feel that we've been given a superfluous display of linguistic dexterity devoid of meaning ...

The works that follow this initial effort can be broadly clustered into two phases,[1] the first being highly influenced by the symbolist[10] and romantic schools of poetry, and the second reflecting greater creativity and individuality in personal expression, and with a recurrent interest in reconciling a mental image of a "mythic past" with an "alienating modernity".

Regarding Rabearivelo's works from this period, editor Jacques Rabemananjara acknowledged the poet's evident talent but critiqued his over-adherence to form and poetic conventions at the expense of innovation and genuine self-expression.

[1] According to academic Arnaud Sabatier, this change reflects "the rediscovery and embrace of the sound and images of traditional Malagasy poetry, from which he had previously distanced himself or which he had subjected to the colonial language and culture".

[2] These later works are described by academic Claire Riffard as "his strangest, evoking rural and commonplace images alongside unexpected dreamlike visions, superimposing the new and the forgotten …" His break from convention in this period offered greater freedom to reconcile his conflicted identity, such as through his bilingual creations, Presque-Songes (1931) and Traduit de la nuit (1932).

[12] Rabearivelo struggled throughout his life to reconcile his identity as Malagasy with his aspiration toward French assimilation and connection with the greater universal human experience.

[10] Recent scholarship has questioned Rabearivelo's elevation as a colonial martyr, arguing that the poet was by and large an assimilationist who did not view himself as African.

[18] The Francophone University Agency and Madagascar's National Center for Scientific Research collaborated to publish the entirety of Rabearivelo's works in three volumes.