University of Exeter Press

Histoire de Louis Anniaba

Roi d'Essenie en Afrique sur la Côte de Guinée

    • 92 Pages


    The African prince Anniaba is the first black hero in French fiction. With his French queen, he also forms the first mixed-race couple. Based on fact, Historie de Louis Anniaba was first published in 1740 but has never before been reprinted. The story allows a degree of narrative and geographical fantasy, but the legal context of the period, in this volume brought into play for the first time, throws into relief the author’s free-thinking stance. In other respects it is a period piece, full of travel and adventure in Africa, on the high seas, in France and on the Barbary Coast.



    Anniaba’s relatively fair complexion, impalusable for some, is a mark of his common humanity and of the author’s refusal to accept that everything out of Africa is monstrous. It is important to rediscover this forgotten text in a world still bearing ths cars of racism.



    This is a volume in the Textes littéraires/Exeter French Texts. The text, introduction and essential notes are all in French.





    Introduction, v; Questions d'histoire et de geographie, vii; Questions de couleur, xii; Questions de style et de narration, xv; Questions d'originalite, xix; Note technique, xxv; Bibliographie selective, xxvii; Histoire de Louis Anniaba, 1; Avertissement, 3; Premiere Partie, 5; Seconde Partie, 49; Table des matieres, 89.



    Roger Little was Professor of French (1776) at Trinity College Dublin until his retirement in 1998. His academic work has been mainly in modern French poetry and the representation of Blacks in Francographic literature. He has edited several volumes of Textes littéraires, including Ourika (expanded edition, 1998), Contes américains (1997) and Empsaël et Zoraïde (1995). His forthcoming books include Between Totem and Taboo: Black Man, White Woman in Francographic Literature (University of Exeter Press, 2001).