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Relation de la captivité
Emanuel d'ArandaT·S·Baker·Books

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Relation de la captivité

Our edition · 1656 · 270 pages

Relation de la captivité

by Emanuel d'Aranda

Emanuel d'Aranda, a Catholic gentleman of Bruges, was taken at sea off Brittany in August 1640 by Algerian corsairs and sold into slavery in Algiers, where he labored until his release in a 1642 prisoner exchange. Written in French and first printed in 1656, his Relation is prized for its close, unsentimental observation of the captives, the corsairs, and North African life. (In French; d'Aranda was a lay observer recording the Christian captive's experience rather than a minister or missionary.)

The changed life

Through two years of bondage among the corsairs, d'Aranda kept the unflinching eye of a witness — leaving one of the fullest firsthand records of what enslaved Christians endured in Barbary.

A note on the text. Relation de la captivitéis in the public domain. What you're buying is our edition — the careful typesetting and design. The original text is also available free here.