Dark Princess

Synopsis: "Though he has made a success as a student of medicine, a young man of Negro blood suddenly finds that racial discrimination prevents him from securing a hospital internship and that his career is ruined. In despair and passionate revolt, he flees from America. One day in Berlin in a dramatic manner he meets the Dark Princess, an exquisite Indian woman of noble birth. Through her he is made aware of a movement among the dark races for self-expression and self-determination, and he becomes involved in an adventure of such magnitude that it absorbs his energies on his return to America. His love for the Dark Princess illuminates the dark ways of his life, and in the end he finds consummation."
(Source: dust jacket of 1928 edition)

About: "Dark Princess is one of five historical novels written by sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois. The novel explores the beauty of people of color around the world. This was part of Du Bois' use of fiction to explore his times in a way not possible in non-fiction history. He expressed fully imagined lives of his characters, using them to explore the richness and beauty of black culture. He explores internationalism and international racial solidarity, as well as corruption and violent radicalism within African-American culture."

"The novel's subtitle, A Romance, points to the narrative’s double valence. As Michèle Mendelssohn argues, "it is the story of a love affair, as well as the story of an ideological romance that challenges one of the United States’ most cherished ideas about itself, the notion that it is a land of progress and possibility for all. The love lost between the hero and the U. S. is the spur for the novel’s political reorientation."

"Late in life, Du Bois described this as his favorite work."
(Source: wikipedia)