Joseph Zobel, La Rue Cases-Nègres [Black Shack Alley]

Louise Hardwick (University of Birmingham)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Tweet Report an Error

La Rue Cases-Nègres (1950), translated into English as Black Shack Alley (1979), is Joseph Zobel’s seminal semi-autobiographical novel, and its publication established the Martinican author as a writer of international significance. The novel’s original 1950 print run in Paris was small, and the text faded into relative obscurity until its reissue with the leading Franco-African publishing house Présence Africaine in 1974. An award-winning film adaptation, Rue Cases-Nègres, by Euzhan Palcy (1983), brought the work to new international audiences.

Zobel’s novel eschews the dominant literary forms of the time (abstract surrealist poetry, and the essay); instead, it …

3753 words

Citation: Hardwick, Louise . "La Rue Cases-Nègres". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 June 2016 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35765, accessed 29 March 2024.]

35765 La Rue Cases-Nègres 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.