BOOKS
152
FIG. 11 (left):
Page 700 of the Negro
Anthology (1934, Nancy
Cunard, ed.), facsimile
edition published by
Nouvelles éditions Place,
Paris, 2018.
FIG. 12 (below):
Page 657 of the Negro
Anthology (1934, Nancy
Cunard, ed.), facsimile
edition published by
Nouvelles éditions Place,
Paris, 2018.
cal history, we realized there was an urgent need
to reprint the full book in a facsimile edition.
Reproducing it faithfully wasn’t about creating
some sort of bibliophile’s fetish but rather an appropriate
response to the work itself and to the
specifi c requirements of its construction. The Negro
Anthology is more than writing. It is a montage
with a composition of colors and rhythms
that improvise within its pages, a poetic and
political discourse containing intervals of unexpected
correspondences and connections. It combines
popular culture with academic discourse,
scientifi c and literary articles, poetic and political
texts, historical treatises, excerpts from periodicals
and other books, posters, leafl ets, musical
scores, poems, photographs, drawings, portraits,
eyewitness accounts, the stories of slaves, reports
of judgments, and statistics. Every detail makes
sense, even down to the cotton cloth cover with
its red ink lettering.
The power and pertinence of the Negro Anthology
are embodied in the dynamic of its relationship
with the world and with knowledge. While
it was intended to broaden knowledge and help
reintegrate Black culture, it cannot be relegated
to merely another shelf in the “human library.”
It is not just about a forgotten continent, the
description of which completes the mapping of