The French Atlantic Triangle: Literature and Culture of the Slave Trade Christopher L. Miller
Miller offers a historical introduction to the cultural and economic dynamics of the French slave trade, and he shows how Enlightenment thinkers such as Montesquieu and Voltaire mused about the enslavement of Africans, while Rousseau ignored it. He follows the twists and turns of attitude regarding the slave trade through the works of late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century French writers, including Olympe de Gouges, Madame de Stael, Madame de Duras, Prosper Merimee, and Eugene Sue. For these authors, the slave trade was variously an object of sentiment, a moral conundrum, or an entertaining high-seas adventure. Turning to twentieth-century literature and film, Miller describes how artists from Africa and the Caribbean-including the writers Aime Cesaire, Maryse Conde, and Edouard Glissant, and the filmmakers Ousmane Sembene, Guy Deslauriers, and Roger Gnoan M'Bala-have confronted the aftermath of France's slave trade, attempting to bridge the gaps between silence and disclosure, forgetfulness and memory.