Victor Séjour
Victor Séjour was a notable Creole writer, born on June 2, 1817, in New Orleans, Louisiana, to a free mulatto father and a free octoroon mother. Raised in a comfortable environment as the son of a prominent merchant, he displayed an early passion for literature, studying under well-known figures like Michel Seligny. In pursuit of a career that would allow him to escape racial tensions in the United States, Séjour relocated to Paris, where he became involved with various literary groups and connected with prominent authors and abolitionists. His acclaimed short story "Le Mulâtre" is significant for being one of the earliest fictional accounts of American slavery, exploring themes of identity, class, and racial injustice.
Throughout his career, Séjour authored numerous plays and received notable acclaim for his poem "Le Retour de Napoléon," which celebrated the return of Napoleon I to France and was included in the first anthology of African American poetry. Over the course of twenty-five years in Parisian theater, he produced more than twenty plays influenced by his admiration for William Shakespeare and Victor Hugo. However, as tastes in theater shifted in the 1860s, Séjour faced economic struggles. He passed away on September 20, 1874, in Paris after a prolonged illness and is interred in Père-Lachaise Cemetery, leaving behind a legacy as a significant figure in early African American literature.
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Victor Séjour
Writer
- Born: June 2, 1817
- Birthplace: New Orleans, Louisiana
- Died: September 20, 1874
- Place of death: Paris, France
Biography
Victor Séjour was born Juan Victor Séjour Marcouet Ferrand, a free Creole, on June 2, 1817, in New Orleans, Louisiana. His father, Juan Francois Louis Séjour Marcou, was a free mulatto originally from Santo Domingo, and his mother, Eloisa Phillippe Ferrans, was a free octorron born in New Orleans. Séjour enjoyed a comfortable life as the son of a prominent merchant who owned a cleaning business. A gifted student attracted to literature at an early age, Séjour studied under writer and journalist Michel Seligny at New Orleans’ Sainte-Barbe Academy. After he completed high school, he moved to Paris, France, where he continued his education and hoped for a career in the arts that would be free from the racial strife he encountered in the United States.
Once established in Paris, Séjour joined several literary groups, which allowed him to come into contact with prominent authors and abolitionist Cyrille Bisette. Séjour received praise for his first work, the short story “Le Mulâtre,” published in La Revue des Colonies. “Le Mulâtre” is one of the earliest fictionalized accounts of American slavery. The story follows its African American slave protagonist after he has killed his slave master; the slave later discovers that his master was actually his biological father. Similar themes of slavery and inequality, class-based separatism, and persecution of minorities, appear throughout his later works, such as his plays Diégarias, La Tireuse de cartes (pb. 1860; The Woman in Red, pb. 1868); and Le Martyre du coeur, but never so openly as in “Le Mulâtre.”
Séjour receive his greatest literary fame for his poem, Le Retour de Napoléon, which fictionalized Napoleon I’s return to France. The triumphant ode celebrates the leader’s return in a grand heroic fashion that was popular in literature of the era. Le Retour de Napoléon was reprinted in the United States as part of the first anthology of African American poetry, Les Cenelles (1845).
During the twenty-five years he worked in Parisian theater, more than twenty of Séjour’s plays were produced. Séjour idolized William Shakespeare and Victor Hugo and openly credited them as his major inspirations, and their influence is obvious throughout his lavishly melodramatic stage productions. Séjour’s genre of playwriting, consisting of Bonapartism, nationalistic pride, and liberty, fell out of fashion in the 1860’s, and Séjour fell upon difficult economic times.
Séjour died in Paris on September 20, 1874, after battling tuberculosis and other illnesses for years. He is buried in the famed Pere-Lachaise Cemetery.