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"Le Mulâtre" ("The Mulatto") is a short story by the American-born free person of color Victor Séjour. It was written in French, Séjour's first language, and published in the Paris abolitionist journal ''Revue des Colonies'' in 1837. It is the earliest extant work of fiction by an African-American author, and was noted as such when an English translation appeared in the first edition of the ''Norton Anthology of African American Literature'' in 1997.〔Frances Smith Foster, "Creative Collaboration: As African American as Sweet Potato Pie," in ''African-American Poets,'' vo.l 1, edited by Harold Bloom (Infobase Publishing, 2009), p. 91; M. Lynn Weiss, introduction to ''Victor Séjour: The Jew of Seville,'' translated by Norman R. Shapiro (University of Illinois Press, 2002), pp. xvii–xxiii.〕 Before the importance of French literature by writers of color from New Orleans was recognized, histories of African-American fiction had conventionally begun with "The Heroic Slave" by Frederick Douglass in 1852,〔Foster, "Creative Collaboration", p. 100.〕 and "The Two Offers" by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper in 1859 had been considered the first African-American short story.〔Werner Sollors, ''Neither Black Nor White Yet Both: Thematic Explorations of Interracial Literature'' (Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 414, note 7.〕 French literature flourished from the late 18th and into the early 20th century in Louisiana, and the francophone literary community among people of color was intellectually rich and sophisticated—a reality obscured by the identification of American literature with writing in English.〔Werner Sollors, foreword, p. xii ff., and M. Lynn Weiss, introduction, in ''Creole Echoes: The Francophone Poetry of Nineteenth-century Louisiana'' (University of Illinois Press, 2004), p. xxiii ff.〕 The literary dynamism of New Orleans prepared Séjour to enjoy a successful career as a dramatist in Paris, where he emigrated to escape racial restrictions in the U.S.〔Caryn Cossé Bell, ''Revolution, Romanticism, and the Afro-Creole Protest Tradition in Louisiana 1718–1868'' (Louisiana State University Press, 1997), p. 94.〕 "The Mulatto" has been described as "a gothic revenge tale revolving around the psychological conflicts of a mulatto searching for the identity of his father."〔Foster, "Creative Collaboration", p. 100, note 8.〕 It is one of the earliest works of fiction driven by the psychological trauma of American slavery.〔Philip Bader, ''African-American Writers'' (Facts on File, 2004), p. 213.〕 ==Publication== The ''Revue des Colonies'' was an abolitionist journal edited in Paris by Cyril Bissette from 1834 to 1842. Its contributors were mainly free persons of color. Bissette published "Le Mulâtre" in the March 1837 issue, not long after the 19-year-old Séjour arrived from his native New Orleans to further his education and career.〔Bell, ''Revolution, Romanticism, and the Afro-Creole Protest Tradition,'' pp. 95–96.〕 A Louisiana state law passed in 1830 restricted the dissemination of "seditious" writing, and Séjour's story detailing the injustice and cruelty of slavery was not published there, though it may have circulated privately through family connections.〔Bell, ''Revolution, Romanticism, and the Afro-Creole Protest Tradition,'' p. 97.〕 An English translation of "Le Mulâtre" was not published until 1997, when Philip Barnard's edition was included in the ''Norton Anthology of African American Literature''. Another translation, by Andrea Lee, appeared in the ''Multilingual Anthology of American Literature'' in 2000.〔Weiss, introduction to ''The Jew of Seville,'' p. xvii and note; Bader, ''African-American Writers'', p. 213.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Le Mulâtre」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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