Toussaint Louverture: the Story Of the Only Successful Slave Revolt In History, an Illustrated Talk

Sakina Karimjee and Nic Watts have adapted CLR James’ play on Toussant Louverture into a graphic novel format.

In this illustrated talk they will tell the story of what became the start of the end of slavery.

San Domingo. In 1791, the enslaved people of the most prized French sugar plantation colony revolted against their masters. For over twelve years, against a backdrop of the French Revolution, they fought an epic black liberation struggle for control of the island. Theirs was the first and only successful slave revolution. It was the creation of Haiti as a nation, the first independent black republic outside of Africa, and an international inspiration to the persecuted and enslaved. This is the impassioned and beautifully drawn story of the Haitian Revolution and its incredible leader: Toussaint Louverture.

The text of this graphic novel is a play by CLR James that opened in London in 1936 with Paul Robeson in the title role. For the first time, black actors appeared on the British stage in a work by a black playwright. The script had been lost for almost seventy years when a draft copy was discovered among James’s archives. Now this extraordinary drama has been reimagined by artists Nic Watts and Sakina Karimjee.