Dark Princess: A Romance

In W.E.B. Du Bois' novel, Dark Princess, Matthew Townes, an aspiring OB/GYN, moves to Berlin when he cannot finish his medical studies in New York City because of the racist rules of the program. Feeling homesick, he meets a purple-haired Indian princess named Kautilya and falls in love. They embark on an embattled and at times fantastical interracial romance through which Du Bois explores ideas of race and politics. As the two lovers work toward liberation from a whites-only world, they are torn apart and later reunited. The novel was published to mixed reviews in 1928, but is said to be the author's favorite of all his works.