Aventurière, espionne, féministe avant l'heure, écrivain, Aphra Behn relate l'histoire d'Oronoko, prince africain qui connut l'amour, tomba en captivité, soutint une révolte d'esclaves. Roman plein de péripéties et histoire vraie à la fois, ce récit écrit par une femme vers 1680 est le premier, un siècle après le début de la traite, à en montrer l'horreur et l'indignité. Virginia Woolf invitait toutes les femmes à mettre des fleurs sur la tombe d'Aphra Behn.

A Restoration farce by a successful woman playwright. "Doctor Baliardo, a Neapolitan philosopher, has so applied himself to the study of the Moon, and is enraptured to such an extent with the mysteries of that orb, that he has come steadfastly to believe in a lunar world, peopled, ruled and regulated like the earth. This wholly fills and absorbs his every waking thought, and, in consequence, he denies his daughter Elaria and his niece Bellemante to their respective lovers, the Viceroy's two nephews, Don Cinthio and Don Charmante, as being men of mere terrestial mould."

`Oronooko' tells the story of a fictional African prince, who is duped into slavery and sent to Surinam, a British colony in South America. There, with his beloved Imoinda also enslaved, he must use every ounce of his reasoning and nobility to persuade his captors to free him. A poignant tale, ´Oroonoko´ was first staged in the UK by the Royal Shakespeare Company, and featured Jo Martin, of TV's `Doctor Who.' ´Oroonoko´ is a riveting read that swayed many of Behn's critics toward abolitionism. Aphra Behn (1640 - 1689) lived many lives in one lifetime. While she is best known for her work as a poet, author, and playwright, she also worked as a spy for the court of King Charles II and spent some time in a debtor's prison. However, very little is known about the UK's first professional female author, possibly as the result of Aphra erasing her history to work in the field of espionage. What we do know is that a quick stay in jail prompted Behn to begin writing as a means of financing herself. Despite an initially successful run of plays, including `The Forc'd Marriage', `The Amorous Prince', and `The Dutch Lover', critics panned her outings, on account they had discovered they had been written by a woman. However, she continued to write, and her play, `The Rover', became a favourite in Charles II's court. Towards the end of her life, Behn wrote prose until her death in 1689. She was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Aphra Behn was the first woman writer in England to make a living by her pen, and her novel Oroonoko was the first work published in English to express sympathy for African slaves. Perhaps based partly on Behn's own experiences living in Surinam, the novel tells the tragic story of a noble slave, Oroonoko, and his love Imoinda. The work was an instant success and was adapted for the stage in 1695 (and more recently by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1999). Behn's work paved the way for women writers who came after her, as Virginia Woolf noted in a Room of One's Own (1928): "All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, ... for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds." (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)

Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave raconte l’histoire poignante d’un prince africain trahi, réduit en esclavage et déporté au Surinam.