Histoire de Louis Anniaba : Roi d'Essenie en Afrique sur la Cote de Guinee

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 litteraires/Exeter French Texts.

The text, introduction and essential notes are all in French.