Black Hamlet: The Mind of an African Negro Revealed by Psychoanalysis

Title: Black Hamlet: The Mind of an African Negro Revealed by Psychoanalysis

Author: Sachs, Wulf

Publication: London: Geoffrey Bles, 1937.

Description: Biography of Manyika traditional healer John Chavafambira by psychiatrist Wulf Sachs. First edition. Frontispiece portrait of Chavafambira. Bound in publisher's full black cloth over boards, with gilt lettering on the spine and front cover. 9 x 6 inches; 280 pages. Bookseller's label (Hutchinson's Bookstore, New Bedford, Mass.) on the front pastedown, moderate soiling and edgewear to the binding, and scattered foxing. Very Good. Having discovered "that the manifestations of insanity...are identical in both natives and Europeans," Sachs psychoanalyzed John Chavafambira, a traditional healer in South Africa, for 2.5 years to determine "if the working fundamental principles of the mind in its normal state were not also the same." Smacks of colonialism and paternalism, but provides a view into the life of a Black South African in the early 20th century.