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

The French slave trade forced more than one million Africans across the Atlantic to the islands of the Caribbean. It enabled France to establish Saint-Domingue, the single richest colony on earth, and it connected France, Africa, and the Caribbean permanently. Yet the impact of the slave trade on the cultures of France and its colonies has received surprisingly little attention. Until recently, France had not publicly acknowledged its history as a major slave-trading power. The distinguished scholar Christopher L. Miller proposes a thorough assessment of the French slave trade and its cultural ramifications, in a broad, circum-Atlantic inquiry. This magisterial work is the first comprehensive examination of the French Atlantic slave trade and its consequences as represented in the history, literature, and film of France and its former colonies in Africa and the Caribbean.

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 Staël, Madame de Duras, Prosper Mérimée, and Eugène 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 Aimé Césaire, Maryse Condé, 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.

"“Miller’s The French Atlantic Triangle is an original and highly readable book that makes a significant contribution to scholarship on Atlantic slavery and its role in shaping the modern world. . . . [T]he book’s detailed examination of France’s long-neglected involvement in the slave trade makes it a necessary read for anyone seeking to understand the cultural echoes of the Middle Passage in the Francophone world and beyond.”" - African American Review

"“Miller’s project is unusual not only in its broad historical scope but also in its attempt to trace links between 18th and 19th-century French literature and 20th-century works by writers from France’s former colonies in Africa and the Caribbean.”" - London Review of Books

"“This is a book of encyclopedic reach and vast dimensions. . . . The French Atlantic Triangle is meticulously researched, almost comprehensive in its treatment of the literary corpus, and makes diligent use of historical scholarship. It offers an astonishing web of circuits of reception, rereadings and intertextual relations between key texts . . . and thus fills a troubling gap in French literary and cultural history. . . . The French Atlantic Triangle is a tremendous achievement that is possible only on the basis of decades of committed research and teaching. Most importantly, it is an important rectification of a reprehensible cultural narrative. Perhaps the day will come when French literary history can no longer be written without mentioning the slave trade and the slave colonies that subtended the motherland of liberty.”" - Journal of Colonialism & Colonial History

"Thoroughly researched and thought-provoking, this well-written book will be accessible even to readers unfamiliar with the primary texts Miller discusses. . . . It will interest not only those studying French and Francophone literature but also those pursuing work in African and black studies. Highly recommended. Lower division undergraduates through faculty."
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"“The French Atlantic Triangle will stand as a landmark in both the study of slavery and its very particular manifestations in the French Atlantic world.”" - Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies