78

The first black man to be awarded the Prix Goncourt in France in 1921 for his novel Batouala, véritable roman nègre, René Maran found himself at the center of polemics that called into question his legitimacy in the French literary field. Was René Maran doomed to be read as “extra-European” because of his origins and his skin color? This article sheds light on the author’s life and writings and analyzes the issue of his reception in France and abroad in order to question the relevance of the labels assigned to authors according to the themes addressed in their work, their origins, and their “race.”