{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20261010T034321Z-reviewed-full-unique-works","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0873527801?tag=bookfrontie00-20","asin":"0873527801","authors":["Claire de Duras"],"book_id":"9780873527804","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/ourika-9780873527804","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780873527804.jpg?v=29ad4c29f373a361","description":"John Fowles presents a remarkable translation of a nineteenth-century work that provided the seed for his acclaimed novel The French Lieutenant's Woman and that will astonish and haunt modern readers. Based on a true story, Claire de Duras's Ourika relates the experiences of a Senegalese girl who is rescued from slavery and raised by an aristocratic French family during the time of the French Revolution. Brought up in a household of learning and privilege, she is unaware of her difference until she overhears a conversation that suddenly makes her conscious of her race—and of the prejudice it arouses. From this point on, Ourika lives her life not as a French woman but as a black woman who feels \"cut off from the entire human race.\" As the Reign of Terror threatens her and her adoptive family, Ourika struggles with her unusual position as an educated African woman in eighteenth-century Europe. A best-seller in the 1820s, Ourika captured the attention of Duras's peers, including Stendhal, and became the subject of four contemporary plays. The work represents a number of firsts: the first novel set in Europe to have a black heroine; the first French literary work narrated by a black female protagonist; and, as Fowles points out in the foreword to his translation, \"the first serious attempt by a white novelist to enter a black mind.\"","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9780873527804","publication_date":"19950101","publisher":"Modern Language Association of America","slug":"ourika","subtitle":"An English Translation","title":"Ourika"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"LIT004150","confidence_band":"medium","label":"French Literary Criticism","score":0.7468,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LCO008020","confidence_band":"medium","label":"French Literary Collections","score":0.7129,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LIT004290","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Women Authors Criticism","score":0.7022,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"LIT004150","confidence_band":"medium","label":"French Literary Criticism","score":0.7468,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LCO008020","confidence_band":"medium","label":"French Literary Collections","score":0.7129,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LIT004290","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Women Authors Criticism","score":0.7022,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"FIC019000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Literary Fiction","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"LIT004150","confidence_band":"high","label":"French Literary Criticism","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"LIT004290","confidence_band":"high","label":"Women Authors Criticism","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"French Literary Criticism","score":0.7468,"slug":"french-literary-criticism"},{"label":"French Literary Collections","score":0.7129,"slug":"french-literary-collections"},{"label":"Women Authors Criticism","score":0.7022,"slug":"women-authors-criticism"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers interested in race and prejudice in eighteenth-century Europe"],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Marguerite Duras"],"book_id":"9780375700521","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780375700521.jpg?v=527f8e46e9b31fe7","score":0.6513,"title":"The Lover","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780375700521"},{"authors":["Marquis de Sade"],"book_id":"9781625586230","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781625586230.jpg?v=519050420021c28b","score":0.6505,"title":"Justine","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781625586230"},{"authors":["Zohra Drif","Brahimi Lakhdar Brahimi Brahimi","Lakhdar Brahimi","Andrew G. Farrand"],"book_id":"9781682570753","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781682570753.jpg?v=9e222479219f79cd","score":0.6429,"title":"Inside the Battle of Algiers","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781682570753"},{"authors":["Samira Ahmed","Soneela Nankani","Leila Buck","Recorded Books"],"book_id":"9781616959890","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781616959890.jpg?v=3c3c1f5a70cd3ea8","score":0.6411,"title":"Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781616959890"},{"authors":["Faiza Guene"],"book_id":"9780156030489","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780156030489.jpg?v=95f05c3fec3865cf","score":0.6371,"title":"Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780156030489"},{"authors":["Camara Laye"],"book_id":"9780809015481","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780809015481.jpg?v=124b67e39031c442","score":0.6356,"title":"The Dark Child","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780809015481"}],"topics":[{"evidence_refs":["keyword:french women authors"],"label":"Women","score":0.1854,"slug":"women"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:19th century"],"label":"Century","score":0.0323,"slug":"century"},{"evidence_refs":["phrase_map_match"],"label":"Short Stories","score":0.0216,"slug":"short-story"}],"what_you_get":["Themes: Racial prejudice, Slavery and freedom, Alienation and belonging.","Themes: Women, Century, Short Stories.","Reading lane: French Literary Criticism and French Literary Collections."]},"llm_signals":{"confidence":0.88,"pacing":"unknown","reader_fit":["Readers interested in race and prejudice in eighteenth-century Europe"],"themes":["Racial prejudice","Slavery and freedom","Alienation and belonging"],"tropes":[]},"source_presence":{"amazon":true,"book_detail":true,"goodreads":true,"llm_signals":true,"similarity_seed":true},"stats":{"amazon_ratings_count":0,"goodreads_ratings_count":1755,"goodreads_reviews_count":183,"quality_score":0.9166}}