Lettres Tahitiennes

Joséphine de Monbart was a disciple of Rousseau and lived in Germany where she befriended Romantic author Jean-Paul Richter and published poetry, a collection of short stories, as well as educational treatises. However, her most famous work is her epistolary novel, Lettres tahitiennes, first published in Berlin in 1784 with subsequent publications in Brussels and Paris. Lettres tahitiennes is directly inspired by French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville's 1771 Voyage autour du monde and its Tahitian chapters.

In his travel account, Bougainville recounts the story of Ahuturu, a Tahitian man he agreed to take on board for the long voyage to Europe. Monbart transforms Bougainville's account into a fictional correspondence between Ahuturu - renamed Zeïr - and his lover, named Zulica, who stays behind on the island. While Zeïr becomes corrupted by the society he encounters in France, Zulica's letters chronicle the abuses suffered by Tahitians at the hands of French and British sailors. She is then sold against her will to an English captain, travels to Europe and is eventually reunited with Zeïr.

Monbart transforms Bougainville's account into a fictional correspondence between Ahuturu - renamed Zeïr - and his lover, named Zulica, who stays behind on the island. While Zeïr becomes corrupted by the society he encounters in France, Zulica's letters chronicle the abuses suffered by Tahitians at the hands of French and British sailors. She is then sold against her will to an English captain, travels to Europe and is eventually reunited with Zeïr

This edition focuses attention on a woman writer with a unique perspective on the colonial take-over of the South Seas. Lettres tahitiennes will engage scholars of the French Enlightenment as it is an epistolary novel, written by a woman, on the Tahitian experience, and contributes to the philosophes' reflection on the Other.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
About the author
Lettres tahitiennes
Notes
Bibliography

Laure Marcellesi is Assistant Professor of French at Dartmouth College.