Abstract

Ourika is the story of an African girl growing up in France: based on a true story, it was a runaway bestseller following its first publication in Paris in 1823. It is now seen as a novel of exceptional psychological penetration and intercultural interest, anticipating Fanon in several ways. Race, class and the role of women in society are key issues it raises. Ourika is acknowledged by John Fowles to have inspired his novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman.

This is a corrected and updated reprint of the 1998 second edition of this text, first published by University of Exeter Press in 1993 in the series Exeter French Texts/Textes littéraires. It is one of the most consistently successful volumes in the series, frequently used as a teaching text on university and other courses.

Roger Little was Professor of French (1776) at Trinity College Dublin until his retirement in 1998. He has an outstanding record of scholarship in French and francophone writing, with particular interests in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. His academic work has mainly concentrated on modern French poetry and the representation of Blacks in Francographic literature. He has edited several volumes of Textes littéraires for University of Exeter Press. The French government has conferred upon him the rank of Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite and he has been awarded the Prix de l'Académie française: médaille de vermeil du rayonnement de la langue française.

Roger Little was Professor of French at Trinity College Dublin until his retirement in 1998. He is the author of Between Totem and Taboo: Black man, white woman in franographic literature (UEP, 2001), and has edited several volumes of Textes littéraires for University of Exeter Press, including Histoire de Louis Anniaba (2000), Contes américains (1997) and Empsaël et Zoraïde (1995). He is also general editor of the seris “Autrement Mêmes”, published in Paris.