Essay
Nations nègres et culture
Not translated into English
Cheikh Anta Diop · 1954
Synopsis
The work argues that the Egypt of the pharaohs was a Negro civilisation, that its language is Negro-African and not Semitic, and that Greece drew its learning from this black Egypt, whose language and culture then spread across West Africa. The author calls as witnesses the ancient historians, Herodotus, Diodorus, Strabo, Pliny and Tacitus, then the moderns, from Volney to Champollion and Frobenius, and maintains that humanity was born in Africa. He draws conclusions from this for the cultural problems of black Africa in his day.
Context
The book takes up the thesis its author had prepared in Paris in 1951 and for which, according to his defenders, no jury could be assembled; Aimé Césaire helped him find a publisher. It appeared in 1954 from Éditions africaines, then from Présence africaine from 1965. It aroused strong opposition in France and made its author one of the most controversial historians of his time; his theses were debated in 1974 at the Unesco colloquium in Cairo. There is no complete English translation.
Who it is for
A substantial volume of scholarship, nearly four hundred pages in the original edition, drawing on citations from ancient authors. It is read by chapters rather than in one go.
Prizes and reception
Césaire regarded it as one of the boldest books a Black man had written; it remains a reference of African historiography, debated by Egyptologists.