Hottentot Venus: A Novel PDF
Preview Hottentot Venus: A Novel
m\ ^urPrice I $?. * BY THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SALLY HEMINGS I .S. $24.00/Canada$36.00 From the bestselling author of Sally Hemings comes an extraordinary new novel based on the true story of Sarah Baartraan, a South African herdswoman exhibited as a "scientific curiosity" in the capitals ofnineteenth-century Europe. Barbara Chase-Riboud's previous historical novels uoii her critical praise and established her as a writer who daringly transforms the hidden truths of the past into compelling fiction. In Hottentot Venus, Chase-Riboud recounts the tragic life ofSarah Baartman, re-creating in vivid, shocking detail the racism and sexism at the heart ofEuropeanimperialism. Born in the colony ofGood Hope, South Africa, in 1789, SarahBaartmanwastakentoLondonattheageof twenty by an English surgeon, who promised her fame and fortune. Dubbed the "Hottentot Venus," she was paraded naked in Piccadilly in a freak-showexhibition and subjected to the unabashed stares and crude com- ments ofthe British public, which resulted in a sensa- tional trial forhercustody by British abolitionists. Soon — afterward, however, Baartman'skeeper whomayhave — been her husband sold her to a French circus owner. In 1814 her new owner took her to Paris as part ofan exotic animal circus, to be displayed to French high society. Baartman endured unconscionable exploitation and cruelty as medical experts and leading scientists touted her as an example ofprimitiveevolution because ofhergenital "apron" and herprominent buttocks. In an unforgettablesagathat rangesfromCapetown to St. Helena to London to Paris and back to Africa, Chase-Riboud has created a Dickensian portrait ofthis icon of scientific racism, whose body, sex, and brain Were exploited. examined, and dissected to become a — synonym for ugliness and brutality the absolute negation of European beauty, which even today taints our Western concepts of humanity. Sarah, the tragic ktmtimirdONbackflap) Hottentot Venus Also by Barbara Chase-Riboud From Memphis & Peking Portrait of a Nude Woman as Cleopatra Untitled Collected Poems (forthcoming) : Sally Hemings A Novel : Valide A Novel of the Harem : Echo of Lions A Novel of the Amistad : Roman Egyptien (in French) The Presidents Daughter DOUBLEDAY New York London Toronto Sydney Auckland Hottentot Venus Barbara Ghase-Riboud vi> PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY adivisionofRandom House,Inc. DOUBLEDAY andtheportrayalofananchorwith adolphin areregistered trademarksofRandomHouse,Inc. Thisbookis aworkoffiction.Anyreferences topeople,locations,andevents areinspiredbyhistoryorareinventionsofthe author's imagination.Apartfrom historicalfigures,anyresemblancebetweenthesecharacters and actualpersons,living ordead,ispurelycoincidental. Book design by Dana Leigh Treglia LibraryofCongress Cataloging-in-PublicationData Chase-Riboud,Barbara. — HottentotVenus : anovel/byBarbaraChase-Riboud. 1sted. — p. cm.— — 1.Ba—artman, S—arah Fiction.2.Women—SouthAfrica Fiction.—3. South Africans Europe—Fiction.4. SouthAf—rica Fiction.5. Exp—loitation Fiction. 6.Women,Black Fiction. 7. Racism Fiction. 8. Europe Fiction.I.Tide. PS3553.H336H682003 811'.54—dc21 2003048907 ISBN0-385-50856-5 Copyright©2003 byBarbaraChase-Riboud All Rights Reserved PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA November2003 FirstEdition 13579 8642 10
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