Ourika: The Original French Text (Texts and Translations t. 3)

by Claire de Duras (Editor)

Based on a true story, Claire de Duras's Ourika relates the experiences of a Senegalese girl who is rescued from slavery and raised by an aristocratic French family during the time of the French Revolution. Brought up in a household of learning and privilege, she is unaware of her difference until she overhears a conversation that suddenly makes her conscious of her race--and of the prejudice it arouses. From this point on, Ourika lives her life not as a French woman but as a black woman who feels "cut off from the entire human race." As the Reign of Terror threatens her and her adoptive family, Ourika struggles with her unusual position as an educated African woman in eighteenth-century Europe.

A best-seller in the 1820s, Ourika captured the attention of Duras's peers, including Stendhal, and became the subject of four contemporary plays. The work represents a number of the first novel set in Europe to have a black heroine; the first French literary work narrated by a black female protagonist; and, as John Fowles points out, "the first serious attempt by a white novelist to enter a black mind."

45 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 1, 2014

About the author

Claire de Duras left her native France for London during the French Revolution in 1789, and returned to France in 1808 as the Duchess of Duras. She maintained a famous literary salon in post-Revolutionary Paris and was the close friend of Chateaubriand, who she had met while in exile in London, and who helped her to publish her books.

Ourika was published anonymously in 1823, one of five novels Claire de Duras had written during the previous year; only two of them were published during her lifetime. The three novellas that she did publish were only done so in order to prevent any possible plagiarism.

Claire de Duras treated complex and controversial subjects, primarily dealing with oppressed/marginalized characters. She explored many fundamental principles of the French Revolution, and touched upon the intellectual debates of the Age of Enlightenment, particularly the equality of all men—and women. In holding with these subjects, tragedy is a common theme. For a long time she was seen as the writer of small and unimportant sentimental novels, but recent criticism has revealed her works to be treasure troves of postmodern identity theory. It is likely she has not been well read because her choice and treatment of subject could not be appreciated until recently; she was ahead of her time.

Reviews

[eno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charles il m’a gavé 😠 sinon super triste et j’ai adoré

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much read and taught fundamental text of 19th century studies. A slight text that holds much depth, stylistically and substantively.