Claire de Duras: Ourika (1823)

Claire de Duras (1777-1828) is an almost forgotten name in French literature, and yet the few novels she wrote, being concerned with difference, disclose an almost modern theme. Olivier ou le secret (written in 1822 but only published in 1971), for instance, is concerned with male sexual impotence, and Ourika with the problems of a black woman brought up in France during the revolutionary period.

Ourika begins with an introduction by a doctor brought to a convent to see the black nun Ourika, although the bulk of the novel is taken up with Ourika's story. At the age of two she was about to depart from Senegal to be taken away as a slave until the governor of Senegal bought her and left her in the care of Mme la maréchale de B. in Paris, where she was brought up in the same way as any white person.

That, as her benefactor recognises towards the end, was the main problem: paradoxically, she was killing the girl with kindness. Ourika is educated to a high standard and grows up for several years with Mme de B.'s grandchildren, the younger of whom – Charles – she becomes very attached to until he leaves for college at the age of seven.

Several years later Ourika discovers her fate through overhearing a conversation: being black, she faces an extremely lonely future because no suitable man will be willing to marry her. She removes all mirrors, tries as much as possible to hide her black skin from others, and dreads meeting new people. But all the time she tries to hide her feelings from her benefactor.

When Charles returns her interest in him is renewed, and she delights in conversations with him until he leaves to marry the wealthy heiress Anaïs de Thémines, with whom they soon have a child. A child she can't have, and she begins to regret that she has been taken from the slave ship, feels  that she could have been 'happily' married with a child in the slave cabins. She begins to waste away and Mme de B. realises what it took Ourika so long to understand: that she is in love with Charles.

And so Ourika finds that her only choice is to devote herself to God. This brings us to the end of her story and the doctor reveals in the final paragraph that Ourika then dies in front of him.