Dark Princess

W.E.B. Du Bois's Dark Princess is not a great novel. It suffers from awkward, sometimes clunky prose and some rather unbelievable characters in this ideologically fascinating tale. As an example of 1920s Harlem Renaissance literature, however, it shares some of the same interests in black internationalism and protest while oscillating between the masses and the elites as the path forward for human redemption. Telling the tale of a frustrated black medical student, Matthew Towns, and an Indian princess eager to see a free India (and a free world for all the "colored" races), the novel shifts in setting between Berlin, New York, Chicago, and Virginia to weave the story of the love and romance of a black descendant of slaves and an "Eastern" monarch, descendant of the 'Black Buddha'  in a dynasty in Bwodpur, India. In accompaniment to the budding romance between Matthew and Kautilya, Matthew works as a Pullman Porter, politician in the corrupt Chicago machine political system, and as a digger or manual laborer for a subway tunnel. Meanwhile, Kautilya struggles as a laborer in the US and experiences first-hand American racism and class exploitation (although experiences with British racism predated the US variant).

In terms of its pairing of black internationalism with Global South anti-imperialism, the novel fittingly combines an interest in socialist critiques of capitalism with anti-racist fervor and collaboration as the path to a renewed world. African Americans, too, through Matthew, are proof of the pivotal role Black American can play in restructuring world politics to undermine European and American imperialism. Like, say, the Haitian Ray in Claude McKay's Home to Harlem, Kautilya and the various Indian, Arab, Japanese, Chinese, and Egyptian characters who appear in Dark Princess represent the oppressed "colored" races in struggle against European/Euro-American hegemony. For Du Bois, however, the spiritual and political union of non-whites is best encapsulated in the union of Matthew and Kautilya, who, despite coming from different worlds, offer the promise in almost messianic tones of a utopian post-colonial world, symbolized by the birth of Madhu. With Kautilya's praise of Soviet Russia and the anti-imperial, anti-racist coalition of Pan-Asia and Pan-Africa, Du Bois is offering a socialist vision for an ideal future (and before he was an avowed Communist!) that combines his seemingly contradictory elitism and democratic inclinations.

One of the interesting aspects of the novel is the pairing of Eastern, Western, and even African American religion and spirituality. Matthew's rendition of the Negro spiritual, for instance, is awe-inspiring for the Asian, Arab, Indian, and Egyptian attendees of his Berlin meeting with Kautilya (now, the "vulgar blues" in Harlem cabarets, on the other hand, did not appeal to Du Bois). Hindu, Buddhist, and Islamic allusions abound, even suggesting Krishna, Radha, and Kali as representing respectively Matthew, Kautilya, and Matthew's mother. Furthermore, while visiting Matthew's mother, Kautilya experiences some of the African-derived religious influences through references to Shango and "voodoo." Since Du Bois thought so highly of the Negro spiritual and African American spirituality, perhaps African American religion and spiritual expression is tied to the black gift thesis. Perhaps, part of the African American and black contribution to the liberation of Africa and Asia will lie in this moral element, to paraphrase Blyden. However, Du Bois's vision is all-encompassing, including ancient Asian civilizations as well as modern European technology and arts to arrive at their ideal democratic aristocracy. But this is an ecumenical vision with room for Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and, perhaps, African "traditional" religion.

As a romance involving African Americans and Indians, this Dark Princess is also intriguing as an example of black-Indian relations and literary engagements. South Asians were living in Harlem and marrying black or Puerto Rican women since the 1920s, so Du Bois was perhaps familiar with or knew of Bengali and other South Asians living or working in Harlem. Although most of these South Asians were likely males, Du Bois, may have been inspired by or influenced by actual relationships between South Asians and African Americans in Harlem. The use of India in his romantic imagination, as well as his fanciful construct of a 'Black India' with ancient civilizations and philosophy likely resonated with his own Afrocentric vision of Africa's great past, suggesting a reunion of 'Black India' and Africa as the two wings of a singular bird. For example, Firmin and other black intellectuals before Du Bois also claimed the Buddha as black and imaginatively construed Indian civilizations as part of a wider black history. One also wonders about potential resonances with later literary works involving Black America and India. Ishmael Reed's satire, Conjugating Hindi, similarly offers an alliance between Indians and Black Americans. The film, Mississippi Masala, is even more similar as it involves an Indian woman falling in love with an African American male in the US South. Like the Indian woman in the film, Kautilya faced resistance from her Bwodpur advisers and bodyguards for pursuing Matthew and the American Negro question. 

All in all, Dark Princess is a fascinating and worthwhile read not for its literary value or style. As mentioned previously, it can be awkward and at times read more like a political essay. However, the variety of ideas, themes, and emotions explored across its pages provokes the reader into reconsidering Du Bois as a writer, intellectual, strategist, and man. As an example of interwar literature reflecting "Eastern" characters and ideas, it refreshingly avoids the concept of a utopian India against a decadent West. Du Bois was too sophisticated for that kind of thinking. "Black" Orientalism could not be the same as that of Du Bois's white contemporaries. But in its messianic overtones, the novel is also profoundly spiritual. Maybe, inf one may be so bold, the novel almost predicts a Madhu-like Martin Luther King who will combine the best of the American Negro and that of the "East" (Gandhi, India, nonviolent resistance).