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The Jew of Seville
Dramas penned by a Francophone Louisiana native of African descent
The Fortune-Teller is Victor Séjour’s retelling of Edgardo Mortara’s removal from his home by the Bologna inquisitor. In Séjour’s rendering, an infant girl Noémi is taken from her Jewish family after being baptized by a wet nurse. Seventeen years later, the baby’s widowed and wealthy mother masquerades as a poor fortune-teller in search of her daughter.
The Jew of Seville tells the story of Jacob Eliacin, a Jew, during the Spanish Inquisition. Eliacin masquerades as a Christian and becomes a prominent member of the court at Seville, but his background is revealed following his daughter’s seduction at the hands of Don Juan.
These provocative historical dramas highlight the discrimination not only of Séjour’s time, but of ours as well.
"Shapiro's superb, lively translations of these two plays invite an intimate and extraordinary look into the complexities of being 'colored' and free in the antebellum South. . . . The two translated plays under review here expose the hypocrisy of religious persecution and by extension the abasement endured by Sejour's own people in Louisiana. . . . Shapiro provides excellent introductions and a representative bibliography."--Choice
"Shapiro deserves much praise for the thoroughly skillful and engaging English version of this play...his translation is flawless and highly readable."--Nineteenth-Century French Studies
"These are two remarkable plays, easily the best dramas by an American-born author (long) before O'Neill . . . . marginalized only because they were written in French rather than in English."--Werner Sollors, professor of comparative literature and African-American literature at Harvard University and the author of Neither Black Nor White Yet Both.
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http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/68wkb8yw9780252074073.html
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Related Titles
Victor Séjour
David Whiteis
Edited by Jennifer F. Hamer
Edited by Horace Maxile, Jr.