Journalist, professor and author of Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War, Howard W. French, spent ten years researching the book: ‘With Born in Blackness, what I have done is rewrite many of the standard narratives attached to the way the West has told the story of modernity. This was the central challenge in this project for me, to be able to do this in a very rigorous and yet highly readable way.’
First Draft is our interview column, featuring authors and other prominent figures on books, reading, and writing.
Our questions are italicized.
What books or kinds of books did you read growing up?
I am told that I was a very precocious reader. An early memory that gets talked about a lot among family is how my oldest sister took me to the public library in Washington, D.C., where I was born, in order for me to apply for a library card. I don’t know how old I was, only that I was told that I was underage; I think five may have been the cut off. In the end, I received the card because my...
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