Joseph Zobel (1915-2006) is one of the best-known Francophone Caribbean authors, and is internationally recognised for his novel La Rue Cases-N�gres (1950). Yet very little is known about his other novels, and most readings of La Rue Cases-N�gres consider the text in isolation. Through a
series of close readings of the author's six published novels, with supporting references drawn from his published short stories, poetry and diaries, Joseph Zobel: N�gritude and the Novel generates new insights into Zobel's highly original decision to develop N�gritude's project of affirming pride
in black identity through the novel and social realism. The study establishes how, influenced by the American Harlem Renaissance movement, Zobel expands the scope of N�gritude by introducing new themes and stylistic innovations which herald a new kind of social realist French Caribbean literature.
These discoveries in turn challenge and alter the current understanding of Francophone Caribbean literature during the N�gritude period, in addition to contributing to changes in the current understanding of Caribbean and American literature more broadly understood.