Dark Princess, written by W. E. B. Du Bois in 1928, is one of Du Bois’ few fiction novels. A work Du Bois created later in his life, the novel explores the beauty of people of darker races around the world, an attempt on the author’s part to further legitimize points he strived to make his entire life: that black people, especially in America, are no less citizens than whites and that the richness and beauty of their culture is one celebrated around the world.
The storyline follows a character named Matthew Towns, a college student in his junior year at the University of Manhattan studying to be an obstetrician. Early on in the novel, Towns is told that not only is he barred from pursuing his career aspirations; he is not allowed to finish his academic studies. His status as a black American does enough to disqualify him from transcendence into the public world of medicine and from gaining access to caring for white female patients.
Towns is devastated until he makes the acquaintance of Princess Kautilya of Bwodpur, India, a beautiful black woman who reassures Towns of the importance of the history of black people in the world and the importance of their presence and impact of their beauty worldwide. The Princess takes him from his dreary world revolving around a stark color line between races and walks him through a vibrant world of prominent world leaders of color as well as those with negative impacts on the progress of blacks in America – evident by Du Bois’ illustration of Marcus Garvey through his character Perigua.
Their relationship is culminated when they bear a child who by birthright is the Maharajah of Bwodpur, a direct connection to royalty which Matthew Towns had never dreamed achievable for a black American man.
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