Product Description

It is Paris, 1815. An extraordinarily shaped South African girl known as the Hottentot Venus, dressed only in feathers and beads, swings from a crystal chandelier in the duchess of Berry’s ballroom. Below her, the audience shouts insults and pornographic obscenities. Among these spectators is Napoleon’s physician and the most famous naturalist in Europe, the Baron George Cuvier, whose encounter with her will inspire a theory of race that will change European science forever.

Evoking the grand tradition of such “monster” tales as Frankenstein and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Barbara Chase Riboud, prize-winning author of the classic Sally Hemings, again gives voice to an “invisible” of history. In this powerful saga, Sarah Baartman, for more than 200 years known only as the mysterious lady in the glass cage, comes vividly and unforgettably to life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #546606 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-09
• Released on: 2004-11-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781400032082
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
In 1810, Sarah Baartman sailed willingly from her home in South Africa to England with her English husband, believing that fame awaited her as an African dancing queen. Well, she certainly found fame. Based on the true story of a woman who was exhibited as part of a freak show in London's Piccadilly and upon her death at age 27 was publicly dissected in France, this novel by poet, sculptor and novelist Chase-Riboud (Sally Hemings) conveys Sarah's victimization so well that the reader is still cringing after the last page is turned. Sarah herself copes with the harsh reality of her husband's betrayal-she's essentially been sold into slavery-through denial and gin. Her best chance to escape comes when abolitionist Robert Wedderburn intervenes by bringing her contract before a judge in an attempt to rescue her. Sarah, however, won't go along with it, because she doesn't want to return to Good Hope, where her Khoekhoe tribe struggles against colonization. Wedderburn captures the reader's frustration when he tells Sarah: "You are the unwitting collaborator of your own exploitation, agent of your own dehumanization!" Indeed, there are many tough scenes to endure, as Europeans endlessly ridicule her body and elongated genitals (mutilated as part of a tribal ritual) and examine her as a scientific curiosity. What makes the story, and Sarah's life, more bearable are the tender scenes with Alice, Sarah's English governess who stays with her and truly cares for her. Kudos to Chase-Riboud for exploring this story of oppression and for humanizing a woman who was virtually regarded as an animal, according to the ideology of the day.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
As she did in her best-selling Sally Hemings (1979), Chase-Riboud dramatizes a true story. This time, she goes back to the Dutch colonies of 1810 to recount the life of Sarah Baartman, a South African woman who was coerced into becoming an exotic dancer by two parasitic men. Having already lost her family in the Dutch and English massacres, Sarah faced certain death by staying in South Africa. Unfortunately, her journey toward a better life results in another kind of exploitation--this time on the freak show circuit in London. Forced into a cage in African garb, which allows the crowd of onlookers to intimately inspect her body, Sarah is put on public display as an example of a primitive oddity. Sadly, the dehumanization of Sarah did not stop with her death. In 1816, her dissected body was exhibited in a French Museum. In 2002, after a long legal battle, her remains were finally laid to rest in South Africa. Praise to Chase-Riboud for her total immersion in the spirit of Sarah Baartman. Elsa Gaztambide
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Praise for Barbara Chase-Riboud

?Any book by Chase-Riboud is bound to be a knock-down, drag-out good read.? ?Washington Times

?Barbara Chase-Riboud writes with a quill of eloquence that is indeed a sword, sounding with the spirituality of Toni Morrison and the passion of Charles Dickens.? ?Elaine Brown, author of A Taste of Power and The Condemnation of Little B.

Praise for Sally Hemings

?Barbara Chase-Riboud is a consummate artist. She invites the reader to consider if resistance and submission can be employed as instruments to live through hazardous times. In a startling book, Chase-Riboud has shown us the cruelty of slavery and the romance of love . . . She has determined to keep us honest about history and give us a great read.? ?Maya Angelou, author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
?This is one of the great American stories and it is admirably told.? ?New York Times

?Unforgettable ? Extremely moving and poetic.? ?The New Republic

?An act of great daring ? Deeply moving.? ?Chicago Sun-Times

?Exquisitely crafted ? A sensitive life study of a truly extraordinary woman: complex, courageous, irresistibly attractive ? elegantly self-possessed.? ?Cosmopolitan
Praise for Echo of Lions
?Echo of Lions gives us Barbara Chase-Riboud's characteristic awesome research and brilliant dramatization of, I think, the most gripping, significant and epic saga that a century of slaveships ever produced." ?Alex Haley, author of Roots
Praise for The President?s Daughter

?Chase-Riboud's passion for history and her obsession with the contradictions of sex and race that underlay the founding of the union bring great richness to The President's Daughter." ?San Francisco Chronicle

Customer Reviews

A Wonderful Work of Historical Fiction!
Hottentot Venus is a wonderful work of historical fiction by Barbara Chase-Riboud surrounding the exploitation and short life of Saartjie "Sarah" Baartman. Saartjie was a South African herdswoman who was brought to England in 1810 and exhibited in a freak show for seven years as the "Hottentot Venus." She was exhibited in a cage partially covered in "native attire" where thousands came to view her protruding buttocks and elongated labia ("apron") - a symbol of beauty and desire by her tribesmen. A distortion on the image of Venus as the goddess of love and beauty, Saartijie was heralded as the missing link between man and apes - thus propelling her as an atrocity to be gawked upon, repulsed and pitied by Victorian England and France.

Saartjie's experience in England lands her in a famous legal case in which abolitionists took her "partners" to court insisting that Saartjie was enslaved and working against her will. She, being an illiterate person, testified that she had signed a written contract with her "partners" and was being fairly compensated; however considering she died in poverty, the contract (if it truly existed) is highly questionable.

Immediately upon death at age 27 from complications caused by alcoholism, syphilis, and tuberculosis, Saartjie's body was sold and dissected to prove the theory that she was indeed the missing link and not human. Her remains (death caste, full skeleton, and prized "apron") were callously displayed and stored in a Paris museum for nearly 200 years and were only recently returned to her native South Africa for burial in 2002.

Chase-Riboud's in depth research and careful reconstruction of Saartjie's world is superb! The novel is lengthy, detailed and descriptive. It has a Victorian flair to it - especially in the passages where in depth dialogue is used to convey the Englishmen's misguided, racists thoughts of the time. The author's imagination fills in the gaps and gives Saartjie a resonant voice that transcends time. A true work of historical fiction as it references the French Revolution, American Civil War, and historical figures like Jane Austen, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Charles Darwin. The reader empathizes with Saartjie, all the while pulling for justice to be served for her. This is a touching novel - one that will stay with the reader well after the last page is turned.

Reviewed by Phyllis
APOOO BookClub
Nubian Circle Book Club

True Account of Ninteenth-century Racism
During the early 1800's Sarah, a South African Khoekhoe tribal woman(degradingly refered to as Hottentots), witnesses the salughter and displacement of her people by European settlers. In desperation, she leaves her home to seek a new life in the city of Cape Town. However, the only thing that awaits her there are menial jobs with slave-like conditions, physical and emotional abuse. Alone and easily seduced, Sarah willingly leaves South Africa for the promise of love, fame and fortune in Europe. Sarah was told she would become rich as an African dancing queen. However, her white companions had another agenda in mind for her. For it was her unique bodyshape(manipulated by tribal rituals), of extremly protrudding buttocks and genitals described as an "apron", is what her white caregivers wanted to exploit. Finding herself in Europe touted as a "freak", caged and naked, for all who pays to see, she is billed as the "HOTTENTOT VENUS". What ensues is a tale that spans seven years in a life that is filled with broken promises, rascism, suffering, and hearbreak.

Barbara Chase-Riboud brings to life the heartwrenching tale of Sarah Baartman by combining factual, historical data with gripping story telling. In HOTTENTOT VENUS, Chase-Riboud steps back in time to the ninteenth-century and recreates a world steeped in sexism, and the ideal of European superiority. Told in the voice of several of the main characters against the backdrop of slums, courtrooms and medical facilities the reader is emmersed in the thoughts and attitudes of the day. There are shockingly vivid scences describing what Sarah endures that will leave readers angry and sadden. However, the ending will give a since of long overdue justice for Sarah. A truly haunting read, one that will stay with you long after the book is read. I recommend the novel to all.

Reviewed by L. Raven James
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Do not miss reading this finest-kind novel
I stayed up late last night finishing a truly tremendously fine book: Hottentot Venus by Barbara Chase-Riboud. It's definitely in the do-not-miss category and is very close to being best book of the year (so far).

Sometimes a novel can be too heavily loaded with detail but, in this one, the superb writing and language balance perfectly the detail. The book evokes its time (1789-1820 or so) richly and satisfyingly with a story that is more than a match for the times and the writing. To my eye, there's only one misstep and, likely, others wouldn't find it so.