Canticles I: mmxvi

Book I of The Canticles puts into dialogue – as dramatic monologues – those who fostered the transatlantic slave trade, or who demonised the image of the Negro in the Occident; as well as those who struggled for liberation and/or anti-racism. In this work, Dante can critique Christopher Columbus and Frederick Douglass can upbraid Abraham Lincoln; Elizabeth Barrett Browning can muse on her African racial heritage and its implications for child-bearing, while Karl Marx can excoriate Queen Victoria.