Jean-Baptiste Tati Loutard
Congolese politician and poet
Who was Jean-Baptiste Tati Loutard?
Jean-Baptiste Tati Loutard (15 December 1938 – 4 July 2009) was a Congolese politician and poet. Having previously served as Minister of Higher Education and Minister of Arts and Culture, he was Minister of Hydrocarbons in the government of Congo-Brazzaville from 1997 to 2009; he was also the founder and President of the Action Movement for Renewal (MAR), a political party. Tati Loutard was born in 1938 in the coastal city of Pointe-Noire and attended the Chaminade High School and the Marianist school in Brazzaville the capital of the Congo. He obtained degrees in modern literature in 1964 and in Italian in 1964 at the University of Bordeaux. His teaching career progressed and Tati-Loutard obtained the post of director of both the School of Humanities and the Center for Higher Education in Brazzaville. Aside from politics, Tati Loutard published numerous books of his own poetry and literature in general.
Historical significance
Tati Loutard returned to Brazzaville in 1966 to teach at the Centre for Graduate Studies. He published Poèmes de la Mer in 1968 and continued to publish regularly.