The Leopard Boy (CARAF Books: Caribbean and African Literature Translated from French) - Softcover

Born in France as one of thirteen children of his French Caribbean parents, Daniel Picouly is a prolific author whose books include the autobiographical Le champ de personne, winner of the Prix des lectrices d’Elle, and Paulette et Roger, winner of the Prix populiste. From 2005 to 2011, he hosted the French cultural television program Café Picouly, and he currently hosts Le Monde vu par... Jeanne Garane is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina.

Daniel Picouly is an award-winning author who explores contemporary issues through historical fiction. In The Leopard Boy, the slave trade and its legacies link Africa, Europe, and the Americas during the French Revolution. Jeanne Garane has done an excellent job of interpreting Picouly's words and worlds.

Jeanne Garane's masterful English translation brings for the first time, to a larger readership, Daniel Picouly's award-winning novel. She elegantly and accurately renders Picouly's entertaining, ingeniously layered, historical and "rocambolesque" novel that weaves Chester Himes, Alexandre Dumas, Afro-French violinist Chevalier de Saint-George, Marie-Antoinette among others, with an enigmatic mixed-raced "leopard boy" during the French Revolution. The Leopard Child interrogates the meaning of skin color in France’s history, and constitutes a major and insightful addition to the well-established body of francophone literatures.

Daniel Picouly’s The Leopard Boy combines a snappy hard-boiled style driven by dialogue with Marie-Antoinette’s stately interior monologues to create a unique work that somehow recalls both Chester Himes and Alexandre Dumas. A good read!