Well-known and appreciated by Africanists, Maurice Delafosse (1870-1926) knew how to exceed the
requirements of his environment and of his time for the benefit of an authentic Africa.
Colonialist administrator from 1894 to 1918, his degrees in naturalism and orientalism allowed him to
lead historic, linguistic, and ethnographical research in the field and to restore the cultural values of the
black world, just as Léopold Senghor did. A major writer of négritude, Delafosse exhibited a particular
interest for these papers on which he established his first essays.
We chose to publish a selection of the research about the African civilisations which he explains in
Les Noirs de l’Afrique(1922) and Les Nègres (1927). The writing style is authentic, the analysis from
the time, and the vocabulary very frank and true to the time period in which it was written.
Nevertheless, let there be no ambiguity: Maurice Delafosse, unquestionably, harboured a deep
passion for the African continent and her cultures.