---
product_id: 18710552
title: "The Viceroy of Ouidah"
price: "KSh5575"
currency: KES
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 11
url: https://www.desertcart.co.ke/products/18710552-the-viceroy-of-ouidah
store_origin: KE
region: Kenya
---

# The Viceroy of Ouidah

**Price:** KSh5575
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- **What is this?** The Viceroy of Ouidah
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## Description

desertcart.com: The Viceroy of Ouidah: 9780140112900: Chatwin, Bruce: Books

Review: Five Stars - lovely Chatwin novel
Review: Destroyed by the night - I came to Chatwin's The Viceroy of Ouidah by way of Werner Herzog's (very loose) film adaptation of it, "Cobra Verde." Herzog's film doesn't quite work. At the end of the day, it's rather fragmented. Chatwin's novel does work. The storyline is simple, and ultimately, I think, not as important as the mood the novel creates. Francisco Manoel da Silva is an early 19th century Brazilian sharecropper who sails to the west African kingdom of Dahomey, makes a fortune in the slave trade, but is eventually brought low and dies penniless and mad. His descendants, wanting desperately to think of themselves as white and Brazilian, fetishizing their ancestor's memory, and nostalgically harkening back to the day when the da Silva name meant something in Dahomey, congregate annually to commemorate him. At the annual gathering that opens the novel, Eugenia, the only suriving child of Francisco, is dying. She's well over 100 years old. None of this is remarkable. What's so powerful about The Viceroy of Ouidah (not an especially good title, by the way) is the mood it creates. Even better than Joseph Conrad, Chatwin draws a portrait of the dark and unfathomable forces of nature--both human and nonhuman--that we "civilized" folks who confront them can't even begin to imagine. We may think for a while, as Francisco does, that we're their master. But in the long run, to cite an unsettling scene in the novel, the night will slay us. The night will destroy us. Paralleling the wild, insane, destructive forces of nature in the novel is the equally destructive slave trade that Francisco engages in. One reviewer has remarked that we gain no insight into Francisco's psychology, and I think this is an accurate statement. He remains opague to the reader. But this may be intentional on Chatwin's part: in his own way, Francisco is part of the very darkness that destroys him, and that darkness is too inky, too swamp-like, for clarity. An extraordinary allegory. Not as rich as the author's later Utz, but well worth reading.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #2,238,993 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #1,709 in Classic Action & Adventure (Books) #11,408 in Mystery Action & Adventure #38,071 in Literary Fiction (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 3.6 3.6 out of 5 stars (108) |
| Dimensions  | 5.06 x 0.4 x 7.75 inches |
| Edition  | Reissue |
| ISBN-10  | 0140112901 |
| ISBN-13  | 978-0140112900 |
| Item Weight  | 4.8 ounces |
| Language  | English |
| Print length  | 160 pages |
| Publication date  | June 7, 1988 |
| Publisher  | Penguin Publishing Group |

## Images

![The Viceroy of Ouidah - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71ikgOpL69L.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Five Stars
*by M***E on December 16, 2014*

lovely Chatwin novel

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Destroyed by the night
*by K***S on July 11, 2008*

I came to Chatwin's The Viceroy of Ouidah by way of Werner Herzog's (very loose) film adaptation of it, "Cobra Verde." Herzog's film doesn't quite work. At the end of the day, it's rather fragmented. Chatwin's novel does work. The storyline is simple, and ultimately, I think, not as important as the mood the novel creates. Francisco Manoel da Silva is an early 19th century Brazilian sharecropper who sails to the west African kingdom of Dahomey, makes a fortune in the slave trade, but is eventually brought low and dies penniless and mad. His descendants, wanting desperately to think of themselves as white and Brazilian, fetishizing their ancestor's memory, and nostalgically harkening back to the day when the da Silva name meant something in Dahomey, congregate annually to commemorate him. At the annual gathering that opens the novel, Eugenia, the only suriving child of Francisco, is dying. She's well over 100 years old. None of this is remarkable. What's so powerful about The Viceroy of Ouidah (not an especially good title, by the way) is the mood it creates. Even better than Joseph Conrad, Chatwin draws a portrait of the dark and unfathomable forces of nature--both human and nonhuman--that we "civilized" folks who confront them can't even begin to imagine. We may think for a while, as Francisco does, that we're their master. But in the long run, to cite an unsettling scene in the novel, the night will slay us. The night will destroy us. Paralleling the wild, insane, destructive forces of nature in the novel is the equally destructive slave trade that Francisco engages in. One reviewer has remarked that we gain no insight into Francisco's psychology, and I think this is an accurate statement. He remains opague to the reader. But this may be intentional on Chatwin's part: in his own way, Francisco is part of the very darkness that destroys him, and that darkness is too inky, too swamp-like, for clarity. An extraordinary allegory. Not as rich as the author's later Utz, but well worth reading.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Complicated Picture
*by A***R on May 30, 2015*

For anyone interested in either West Africa or the origins of the slave trade, this book presents an interesting take on the intricacies that evolved between the Europeans and the West Africans in a somewhat novelized format. While occasionally complicated to follow, it presents a look into a murky time in history.

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*Product available on Desertcart Kenya*
*Store origin: KE*
*Last updated: 2026-02-24*