Bug-Jargal
Author | : Victor Hugo |
Publisher | : Broadview Press |
Total Pages | : 336 |
Release | : 2004-07-26 |
ISBN-10 | : 9781551114460 |
ISBN-13 | : 1551114461 |
Rating | : 4/5 (60 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: Victor Hugo’s Bug-Jargal (1826) is one of the most important works of nineteenth-century colonial fiction, and quite possibly the most sustained novelistic treatment of the Haitian Revolution by a major European author. This Broadview edition makes Hugo’s novel available in a completely new English translation, the first in over one hundred years. Set in 1791, during the first months of a slave revolt that would eventually lead to the creation of the black republic of Haiti in 1804, Bug-Jargal is a stirring tale of interracial friendship and rivalry, a provocative account of the ties that bind a young Frenchman to one of the rebel leaders and the tragic misunderstandings that threaten to sever those ties completely. This Broadview edition contains a critical introduction and a broad selection of appendices, including Hugo’s never-before-translated 1820 short story “Bug-Jargal,” contemporary reviews of the novel, documents pertaining to the young Hugo’s poetics and politics, and selections from his source materials about the Haitian Revolution.