black authors

René Maran was born in Martinique, educated in France, and served as a colonial administrator in the French colonies of West Africa.  In 1921, he won the Prix Goncourt for Batouala. He was the first black author to be so honored. Although the book's preface includes a blistering critique of French colonial abuses, Maran asserts that the novel is a story not of black against white, but simply of two men in a Banda village fighting over a woman.