Dark Princess: A Romance

by W.E.B. Du Bois

The problem of "the color line," W.E.B. Du Bois's ever-present polemical theme, is at the core of this novel of sensual love, radical politics, and the quest for racial justice. Originally published by Harcourt Brace and Co. in 1928, Dark Princess was one of two novels written by Du Bois. Toward the end of his life he ranked it as his favorite of all his works.

For the fantastical storyline, heavy with propagandist overtones, Du Bois depicts 1920s America as a racist nation primed for radical protest and terrorism. Matthew Townes, the protagonist, is a medical student expelled because his race bars him from the required course in obstetrics in a white hospital. Self-exiled in Berlin after his political idealism is corrupted, Townes falls in love with Princess Kautilya, daughter of a maharajah, and joins the international team she heads in which people of color unite against white imperialism. Du Bois recounts their quest for liberation in a whites-only world that overwhelms their passionate love and separates them. Du Bois concludes the novel with the birth of their son--proclaimed as the Maharajah of Bwodpur and "Messenger and Messiah to all the Darker Worlds."

The reviewer for the New York Herald Tribune found "amidst much pure romance and preciosity of style there are rich deposits of straight sociology [as well as] interesting and revealing reading [for] the white reader who has yet few ways of looking into the many closed chambers of Negro life or of seeing into the dilemmas of the intellectual Negro mind and heart."

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literature, College, Novels, School, African American Literature

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

In 1868, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (pronounced 'doo-boyz') was born in Massachusetts. He attended Fisk College in Nashville, then earned his BA in 1890 and his MS in 1891 from Harvard. Du Bois studied at the University of Berlin, then earned his doctorate in history from Harvard in 1894. He taught economics and history at Atlanta University from 1897-1910. The Souls of Black Folk (1903) made his name, in which he urged black Americans to stand up for their educational and economic rights. Du Bois was a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and edited the NAACP's official journal, "Crisis," from 1910 to 1934. Du Bois turned "Crisis" into the foremost black literary journal. The black nationalist expanded his interests to global concerns, and is called the "father of Pan-Africanism" for organizing international black congresses.

Although he used some religious metaphor and expressions in some of his books and writings, Du Bois called himself a freethinker. In "On Christianity," a posthumously published essay, Du Bois critiqued the black church: "The theology of the average colored church is basing itself far too much upon 'Hell and Damnation'—upon an attempt to scare people into being decent and threatening them with the terrors of death and punishment. We are still trained to believe a good deal that is simply childish in theology. The outward and visible punishment of every wrong deed that men do, the repeated declaration that anything can be gotten by anyone at any time by prayer." Du Bois became a member of the Communist Party and officially repudiated his U.S. citizenship at the end of his life, dying in his adopted country of Ghana. D. 1963.

More: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stori...

http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/0his...

http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/dub...

Reviews

[Dominique · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love the mind of W.E.B. with a fierceness I can't put into words. His work, his attempts, his striving...I can go on and on. But this is just terrible, terrible writing. Want proof?

" And he cried, 'Kautilya, darling!'
And she said, 'Matthew, my Man!'
'Your body is Beauty, and Beauty is your Soul, and Soul and Body spell Freedom to my tortured groping life!' he whispered."

Bad.

That being said, if I had had zero expectations, I may have enjoyed the plot, however predictable it may be. I suggest, if you are going to read this book, do so with a COMPLETE open mind. I know, as for me, I may skip the whole "Mansard" trilogy and instead start on that interesting-looking book about the friendship between DuBois and Robeson. Happy reading!

p.s. Reading this book on the subway always got me some disparaging looks since the title of the book is a little eyebrow-raising with our modern understanding of what a romance novel is.

[Victor Galov · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's interesting to read DuBois, and within his own cultural context, the book is forgivable. But for a modern audience, the ideas are just...

For starters, the romance is bad. Just bad. I feel no investment for the protagonist and his love interest, he is more interested in the color of her skin than anything else, and not in the good, empower kind of way but in the fetishizing way. DuBois, who I respect for his thinking, his activism, his participation in the early days of the civil rights movement, just misses the mark here.

More Imperial Japanese apologism than anything else, a Marxist like DuBois barely even paid attention to the overlaps of race and class, somehow relating the protagonist to Indian royalty and making it seem as if the future for black Americans couldn't be won internally, but needed an external force to come save an entire demographic.

That said, for a historical view into the world at the time, this is a good read. And for an analysis of DuBois and his later philosophies, it's neat to read. It's weird reading about Imperial Japan BEFORE they become the bad guys.

[Madison Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first half of the book, especially the start, it was really exciting. But I found it got really dense during the 3rd quarter of the book. Lots of politics and back and forth that I don’t think was super necessary for the plot. Also didn’t really like the ending. I think it shows why Du Bois is known far better for his work as a public figure and orator rather than a fiction author. Now I have to think of how to do my presentation about this book for Wednesday 🫣🫣🫣😓😓😓😓

Also if I had a dollar for every time he calls someone a Bolshevik 🤑🤑🤑🤑

[Tairan Qiu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not dive into this book at all. I felt like I was just pulling myself through the pages. This is a story about an African American doctor falling in love with an Indian Princess. They went through ups and downs but the drive of love took them through the difficulties and struggles that the society brought them. In the end, it reveals that they will be expecting a baby soon, a baby that is mixed race. I don’t think the author did a good job on portraying the characters neither. They don’t seem real. They have their own problems but they always tent to solve it in a rational way, which is not how people always solve problems. Also, the way they express their love is way too dramatic and I found it hard to believe. Even though I was unable to dive into the story, I liked the how the story had an open ended ending that allows the readers interpret it in their own ways.

I would probably not teach this book in a secondary classroom because there are better books that are relatable to the students that illustrates race, gender and class. The relationship between Matthew and Kautilya’s love is somewhat complicated because of the politics and class issues, it might be a little bit too hard for the students to understand.

If I had to teach this book, I would use literary theories because if issues are viewed through one lens, then it’s easier for the students to dig deeper. Because Kautilya and Matthew traveled around the world to conferences, they met a lot of people that spoke different kinds of Englishes. I could use the dialogues in this book to teach World Englishes as well as prescriptive/descriptive grammar.

[Oakley C. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like Thomas Pynchon without the humor, style, or experimentation...just a bunch of silly bullshit and obscene oreintalism. Du Bois was a great leader, thinker, and writer but I suppose its best to stick to his non fiction.

[Aaron Goggans · Rating 1 out of 5]

only one good chapter in the whole book

[Jocelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that is both under and overrated. If you are a fan of Du Bois it's a must read (simply because it is so different from his usual that it will definitely blow your mind.) If you've never read any Du Bois its important to read the introduction so you can place the text (otherwise I don't think it will go over that well.) It's a pretty melodramatic writing style which was intentional I think but definitely not the norm of what is expected from a figure like Du Bois or Black writers in general at the time of his writing.

[Taylor Werner · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book discusses African American oppression, but illuminates the beauty of the people, and introduces readers to the different races of the world. There are four sections to this novel, which show the progression of the characters and their love overtime. I did not particularly care for this book, but it does a good job of allowing the reader to feel the oppression of the characters, as well as the hope and achievement that they acquire at the end of the novel. This is an informational book, but I would not recommend it for anyone looking for a relaxing read.

[stacia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Melodramatic and didactic as it is, I kind of adore this book. How can you beat W.E.B.'s one attempt at a romance novel?

[Amber · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't get past page 30.

[Imani ♥ ☮ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished this book while in Tamil Nadu, which felt apt and not apt at the same time, given that virtually none of the scenes actually take place in India. This is a fascinating book, complex in its rendering of a Black man’s angst in a post-reconstruction USA. Orientalism and romance aside, it is basically a dramatization of Du Bois’ concerns regarding Afro-Asian solidarities in a looming post colonial world. I was surprised, but probably shouldn’t have been given Du Bois’ dynamic intellectualism, how much he depicted his skepticism about these solidarities, as well as the latent and explicit anti-blackness/Africanness rampant in these discussions. Du Bois was also clearly thinking about the relationship of work, satisfaction, and liberation for the Black masses (is work truly God?). Worth mentioning is that Du Bois deliberately placed a majority of the book in Chicago, which he characterizes as the heart of America (for both good and bad reasons).

Regarding the literary merit of the book, it was fascinating that Kautliya’s voice was basically Shakespearean which rendered her more of a symbol of great exotic womanhood than a character. Part of me wishes more of the scenes had taken place in India but given that I’m quite sure Du Bois never visited, it may have plummeted the book’s quality. The Black characters had a bit more development; I feel like I knew a Matthew. I felt that Sara especially was well written for the time period (implicit misogyny aside, she was a bad bi*ch). The Marcus Garvey-type character was quite telling as well (iykyk).

If it wasn’t clear, I do think the book is generally enjoyable as a “tale” but I think the best use of this book would be paired (in parts) with a Black studies college level course on third world solidarities or something like that.

After reading this, I wondered what Du Bois would make of the state of Afro-Asian and working class solidarities in 2025. My impulse is to be optimistic about the state of affairs, despite all of the failures and defeats awaiting Du Bois and the rest of us in the 20th century. If nothing else, it is worth it to read Dark Princess to understand how many of the current debates have haunted the generations before and that the journey to liberation is a long one.

[Jack · Rating 2 out of 5]

DuBois’s legacy as a political writer speaks for itself, but his attempts at fiction are as heavy handed as they come. I mean, the pages upon pages of rambling letters between Matthew and Kautilya that take up the last third of the novel were exhausting, and screamed of DuBois reverting to a more familiar political nonfiction genre.

This book is also framed around a pretty flimsy premise. Just from its title, it was safe to assume that Matthew and Kautilya would end up together (and probably procreate) to represent the merging of the Eastern and Western worlds and the rising up of a non-white international community. DuBois’s exploration of Afro-Asian internationalism is pretty interesting, especially in his analysis of how Black Americans had to reckon with a material dispossession that left them disadvantaged in international politics, even when not dealing with Europe or the U.S. But these moments of complexity are bogged down with endless pining from two rather unlikable characters, who I guess are supposed to be the good guys?? Even though they are willing to throw away any semblance of social progress on some contrived notion of love?

Now, I LOVE DuBois as a writer, and admire him so deeply for his work and the step away from institutionalism he is clearly reckoning with in this text. And for me this book did have one very compelling and interesting portion (hence the two stars): chapter three and the exploration of a rising Black electorate in Chicago. This part was so juicy! With fancy political dinners and backroom deal-making, it finally felt like DuBois was moving away from the age-old trap of telling, not showing.

But no matter how good these moments were, they always brought us back to Matthew and Kautilya, even at the expense of further developing characters like Sara and Sammy and the political blocs behind them. Using interracial procreation as allegory — and centering a whole book around unification vis a vis that procreation — really destroyed this book for me, and is the type of misogynistic, boring plot line only a man could think up. And, Oh wait: They already have! For years and years and years before DuBois sat down and wrote this book!

[Khepre · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is a unique way of tackling race in the 20th century and highlighting the idea that dreams are indeed possible no matter what race you are.

[Lucy Gould · Rating 2 out of 5]

RIP Matthew, you would've loved podcast culture (this is an insult).

[Matt Gunther · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can appreciate the intellectual value of reading this novel; I found it to be an interesting way of looking at Du Bois' "double-consciousness" on a global scale. I can even appreciate the wavering form as a means of depicting Matthew Towns' wavering view of romantic idealism and soulless cynicism.

But seriously...Section III (The Chicago Politician) is a brutal read. As I said, I can appreciate what Du Bois was going for, but it really stops the novel dead in its tracks to a fault. Some of the dialogue is also a bit unnatural. I doubt that even the most intellectual people speak like this in casual conversation. It reads, at times, more like a political tract than a novel.

Read it if you are into Du Bois; otherwise...Eh.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Get ready for a rollercoaster ride! Part sociological novel, part romance, part internationalist political fantasy, Du Bois's "Dark Princess" will either be a book that you love or one that you hate. There are no two ways about it. Thinking about the novel's incoherence as a way of depicting a political period that was, in its multiplicity, incoherent seems a productive way to work through the book's more problematic parts. Also, Du Bois never wrote with so much erotic (and hysterical) energy as he does here.

[Elsie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me cry at the airport. I really liked it. Makes Atlas Shrugged look like its bad mirror image. (How can the American railroad be a tool of social change? What secret society is going to change the world? Who are your heroes--workers or owners?)

[katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

the final 100 pages were genuinely, interminably excruciating. why are they behaving like john green teenagers.

@ DuBois thank you for all the civil rights activism and everything but this is the longest book i’ve ever read in my life

[John Henry · Rating 2 out of 5]

He makes black liberation seem corny as fuck. Like I straight up do not want to do it anymore

[Samantha Hole · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a Du Bois self insert and I don't like Du Bois. This was literally ridiculous. I have read a lot of Du Bois (my senior capstone is of the life and works of him), and so I should have expected this. I did like that this was more of a story than some of his other works, but my favorites of his are still Darkwater and Souls. That being said, I cannot stand the way that Du Bois talks about women. It is so demeaning and demonizes women. Sara did so much for Matthew, and he was like she was too ambitious; she wants to have a career, and she is being vindictive by getting all of these influential people here to celebrate me getting elected to Congress. AND YOU KNOW WHAT HE DOES?? he fucks Kautilya AT THE PARTY. Kautilya is literally only portrayed as a desirable woman because she births the savior she is only good for being a mother. This book made me so angry. It was good for me to further my argument of why I don't like Du Bois as a person. Silly. Would not have read if not for class. If you read anything by Du Bois, don't let it be this, read Souls of Black Folk and Darkwater, they are so much more substantial and meaningful in my opinion.

[Keeley · Rating 3 out of 5]

What an unusual novel. If it's a romance, it's so in the sense of Conan Doyle or Stevenson, where there are a lot more trials and tribulations than sweet nothings. It feels expansive in a Dickensian way as the action moves from one part of Matthew's life to the next; given the amount of musical references in the book, I'm inclined to think of the four sections as classical movements.
There is traditional literary artistry (pay attention every time someone is furnishing a residence) mixed together with socialist manifestos, and all around is the post-World War I colonial world familiar (from a white perspective) from authors like Buchan and Orwell.
While the book is somewhat uneven and not at all aligned to the expectations of today, it would be an extremely appropriate selection for a class on the 1920s and the moves to evict colonial oppression.

[Vinay Khosla · Rating 2 out of 5]

I get it, and love DuBois but he’s not a novelist is he… read this for a class on Black-South Asian connections and I think this will be super interesting to analyze/think in that context. Unfortunately as a piece of literature it didn’t do anything for me. But again, DuBois and all so I’m not gonna hate.. the ‘color line within the color line’ will prove a useful conceptual tool for widening contexts of Black liberation within the US to an international context and Bhabhas introduction is also super useful for following this thread. The transcendental, idealist bent in the last epistolary chapter I found strange and off putting but indeed is where the most critical work can/should be done, alongside the first chapter

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was assigned to read this in an American Culture class. It was ok. Nothing too captivating or unpredictable. It centered around a male, his devotion to a dark princess, and the struggles he, as well as other people of color, faced in a world dominated by the white race. Characters had to decided between their principles and fitting in and being accepted by popular culture. To me, it was a little long winded and slow, even if the concept behind the novel was strong.

[Jillian Juskiewicz · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to read this for an Asian American studies class. I think this novel started out really strong but ultimately fell flat for me. I do love the symbolism that DuBois used and how the characters were representative of the political and racial narrative of the time. DuBois is a funky writer for sure.

[Vivian]

read this for my engl 200 class, and i'm glad i did bc i don't know if i would have read this book on my own. lots to unpack here. i don't feel i can give it a rating bc i'm still ruminating on it. worth reading tho!

[Gabi Yuan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.37/5! super long read but honestly really enjoyable—first du bois book I’ve read and really interesting to learn about Afro-Asian alliance/international relations in the 1920’s. would definitely recommend!

[Ruth A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the language of DuBois

Reading this was eerily modern. A fantastical tale of longing and action that gives a moment-pause to my lurking cynicisms. Yep, moment has passed. Still love DuBois. Not so sure about the “Talented Tenth” notion. Enjoy.

[Elyse · Rating 5 out of 5]

How have I read "The Great Gatsby" in three separate classes but only just read this for the first time?Should be included in the American canon.

[Lani Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the story a lot BUT I ended up not liking the main character too much because I'm a #girlboss!

[Jordan Watts · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for class. Didn't really enjoy that much but has lots of layers for analyzing.