Table of Contents

Preface ix
Abbreviations xv
Part One. The French Atlantic
1. Introduction 3
2. Around the Triangle 40
3. The Slave Trade in the Enlightenment 62
4. The Veeritions of History 83
Part Two. French Women Writers: Revolution, Abolitionist Translation, Sentiment (1783-1823)
5. Gendering Abolitionism 99
6. Olympe de Gouges, "Earwitness to the Ills of America" 109
7. Madame de Stael, Mirza, and Pauline: Atlantic Memories 141
8. Duras and Her Ourika, "The Ultimate House Slave" 158
Conclusion to Part Two 174
Part Three. French Male Writers:Restoration, Abolition, Entertainment
9. Tamango around the Atlantic: Concatenations of Revolt 179
10. Forget haiti: Baron Roger and the New Africa 246
11. Homosociality, Reckoning, and Recognition in Eugene Sue's Atar-Gull 274
12. Edouard Corbiere, "Mating," and Maritime Adventure 300
Part Four. The Triangle from "Below"
13. Cesaire, Glissant, Conde: Reimagining the Atlantic 325
14. African "Silence" 364
Conclusion: Reckoning, Reparation, and the Value of Fictions 385
Notes 391
Bibliography 527
Index 547

Promotional Information

Sweeping re-examination of the place of slavery in French literary, cultural, and political history

About the Author

Christopher L. Miller is Frederick Clifford Ford Professor of African American Studies and French at Yale University. He is the author of Nationalists and Nomads: Essays on Francophone African Literature and Culture; Theories of Africans: Francophone Literature and Anthropology in Africa; and Blank Darkness: Africanist Discourse in French.

Reviews

"This dazzling, provocative book is a compendium that sets an explosive new agenda for French Studies. Christopher L. Miller's work is important not only for scholars but also for postcolonial France as it struggles to comes to grips with its past." Paul Gilroy, author of The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness "This is a lovely book about an un-lovely subject. Christopher L. Miller brings the insight of a mature major scholar to questions about literature, slavery, and culture in the Francophone world." Kwame Anthony Appiah, author of Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers "Revealing a remarkable breadth of knowledge, Christopher L. Miller combines conceptual sophistication, an authoritative analysis of Francophone texts, and a compelling discussion of the ways that the French Atlantic triangle emerged and put a lasting imprint on French imagination and politics. This is a significant contribution to an understanding of the world slavery built. It is a truly great book; it should be read by anyone who cares about race, memory, literature, and citizenship." Francoise Verges, author of Monsters and Revolutionaries: Colonial Family Romance and Metissage "The French Atlantic Triangle is an extremely impressive, compelling, and necessary book. Christopher L. Miller provides a magisterial examination of how the history of slavery, which profoundly shaped the culture of France, has haunted and animated the work of generations of writers and artists. In the process he offers us a new way of defining and seeing the French Atlantic." Laurent Dubois, author of A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804 "The French Atlantic Triangle is a tremendous achievement. Meticulously researched and lucidly written, it is an introduction to a neglected water world, without knowledge of which our encounter with continental history and literature is doomed to perpetuate biases and omissions." Deborah Jenson, author of Trauma and Its Representations: The Social Life of Mimesis in Post-Revolutionary France "Miller's comprehensive survey of French abolitionist literature in the late 18th and early 19th centuries forms the core of his study." London Review of Books, 10th September 2009