Jozef Ignác Bajza, René, or: A Young Man’s Adventures and Experiences

Dobrota Pucherová is Senior Researcher at the Institute of World Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences, and Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Vienna. Her research spans African and Central European literatures, especially from the perspectives of feminism, postcolonialism, postcommunism, transculturalism and world literature. Erika Brtáňová is Senior Researcher at the Institute of Slovak Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences, and Associate Professor in the Department of Education at Comenius University in Bratislava. Her research focuses on early modern Slovak literature, especially theological and religious-didactic genres.

“This lively translation of Histoire du nègre (Tale of Black Histories) smartly recognizes and celebrates Édouard Glissant’s early cultural activism. The translators/editors, Emily Sahakian and Andrew Daily, assert convincingly that Glissant’s commitment to a pedagogical theatre not only informs his later theorization of the Caribbean condition but also addresses oppression wherever it occurs. Histoire du nègre (1971) - a collective assemblage born of Glissant’s overarching educational project at his Institute for Martinican Studies - revisits official French “History” by juxtaposing opposing texts. He thus creates a dialogue that exposes the horrors and hypocrisy of colonialism. As Sahakian and Daily tell us, the resulting “histories” demonstrate how colonial power twists the truth but also how anti-colonial artists uncoil it, bringing to consciousness that which has been veiled. In their wonderfully informative introduction and notes, Sahakian and Daily explain the stakes of doing this kind of theatre work in Martinique, as well as the potential for reprising and reframing Tale of Black Histories for contemporary Anglophone production (which, in fact, Sahakian has done with several groups of students). Those interested in translation will learn a great deal from examining how the French text, included in this volume, has been transformed for production in English. Scholars of Glissant will marvel at how his gang of theatrical mavericks engaged with popular audiences in impromptu and participatory gatherings.” Judith G. Miller, New York University

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction (Dobrota Pucherová and Erika Brtáňová)Translator's Note (David Short)J. I. Bajza, René, or: A Young Man’s Adventures and Experiences Book I Book IIJozef Ignác Bajza’s René and György Bessenyei’s The Voyage of Tariménes in the context of Central European Enlightenment (Anikò Dušíková and Dobrota Pucherová)Travels among ‘backward heathens’: Jozef Ignác Bajza’s *René *as a frontier orientalist fantasy (Dobrota Pucherová)BibliographyIndex