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Davies, Caitlin : The Return of El Negro

Viking an Imprint of Penguin Books, 2003

The wraps are still in a very good condition. Internally clean and tightly bound. Complete with 260 pages. [B.K.]. Book Condition: Very Good. Binding: Softcover

First Edition.

Davies, Caitlin : The Return of El Negro

(Johannesburg: Penguin, 2003) 0670047937

ISBN 0670047937

233 x 152 mm; laminated pictorial wrappers; pp. (vi) + 260; plates. Slightest curl to corner of upper wrapper; faint browning. Very good condition. "El Negro was the name given to a southern African man whose body was stolen from his grave in the early 19th century by two respected French naturalists. The body was stuffed in the same way that trophy animals are stuffed and sent to Europe to further the cause of scientific racism and to 'entertain' the public. It eventually ended up in a glass case in a museum in a small Spanish town. In the 1990s, after a decade of protest and protracted political and diplomatic exchanges, it was finally agreed that the body be repatriated to Botswana. In October 2000, El Negro was laid to rest in a sombre state burial in Gaborone, capital of Botswana. It was then that the triumph for Africa turned sour. Although the true identity of the man has never been established, he has come to symbolise all those who were murdered, excavated and stolen from Africa by 19th century explorers and naturalists and taken to Europe in the name of science and for entertainment. In this carefully researched and immensely readable book, Caitlin Davies throws wide open the debate about what is appropriate in the name of 'science' where human remains are concerned. In the process she retraces El Negro's fateful journey to Europe, including a search for the missing grave goods without which it is believed the stolen man cannot rest in peace."

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