Favorites of the Gods: An Anthology of Short Fiction by New Orleans Creoles of Color (1837-1867). Translation, Introduction, and Notes by Chris Michaelides.

The ten stories contained in Favorites of the Gods are among the most remarkable works of American literature you have never read. Written in French by Creoles of color in New Orleans, these stories span four decades of the 19th century and offer insights into a world English-speaking writers could glimpse but could never fully appreciate. In these pages, readers will discover fantastic tales totally devoid of fantasy: there is the account of a man who kills his enslaver with unexpected consequences, the history of a white woman who bears her slave’s love-child, the tale of forbidden love related by a black Civil War soldier, the passion of a man who loves a man of color but…

The eight authors contained in this book spoke about race with an authority and audacity that could have cost them their lives at any moment—and yet they wrote. They wrote out of the conviction that a better world was possible; they wrote for future readers that they conjured up by the power of their pens and their imaginations. They left a roadmap that brought to life the realities of an exiled America that America saw as nothing but exotic curiosities. As in the biblical story of Daniel in the lions’ den, these writers endured trials and revealed providential purpose as “favorites of the gods.”

Chris Michaelides’s masterful translation of these texts is the product of twenty years of labor by a scholar who has approached every word contained within them with the respect it deserves. The comprehensive introduction gives ample background to orient modern readers who have never heard of these writers but who will discover that they are holding in their hands ten of the crown jewels of American literature by writers of color from the 19th century.

D. A. Kress

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ISBN : 978-1-7353605-6-0