La Revue du Monde Noir (The Review of the Black World)

Paris, France. 1931-1932

The autumn 1931 inaugural issue of Paulette and Jane Nardal’s Revue du Monde Noir appeared in Paris while the International Colonial Exposition was in full swing. It opens with a tall promise. Thanks to this bilingual literary and cultural journal, “the two hundred million individuals which constitute the Negro race, while scattered among the various nations, will form over and above the latter a great DEMOCRACY: a prelude to Universal Democracy.” After less than one year and six issues, even as it announced the publication of a dozen exciting new texts for the following month, La Revue du Monde Noir was forced to fold.

Availability:

A single-volume reprint edition containing the six original issues and a preface by Louis-Thomas Achille was published in 1992 by Jean-Michel Place.

References:

Chevrier, Jacques. La Littérature nègre, Armand Colin, 1984.

Dewitte, Philippe. Les mouvements nègres en France, 1919-1939 . Paris: L'Harmattan, 1985.

Edwards, Brent Hayes. The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2003.

Fabre, Michel. La Rive noire, de Harlem à la Seine. Paris: Lieu Commun, 1985.

Sharpley-Whiting, Tracy D. Negritude Women. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2002.