Black Robe

Infobox Book |
name = Black Robe


image_caption = Cover to 1997 Plume reprint edition
author = Brian Moore
cover_artist = Nancy Etheredge (first Canadian edition)
country = Canada
language = English
subject = Jesuits--Missions--Canada--History--17th century--Fiction.
Indians of North America--Canada--Fiction.
Missionaries--Canada--Fiction.
Algonquin Indians--Fiction.
genre = Historical novel
publisher = McClelland and Stewart (first Canadian edition), Dutton (first American edition)
release_date = 1985
pages = 246 pp (first Canadian and American editions)
isbn = ISBN 0-7710-6449-7 (first Canadian edition), ISBN 0-525-24311-9 (first American edition)
preceded_by = Cold Heaven
followed_by = The Colour of Blood

"Black Robe" is a historical novel by Brian Moore. It was first published in 1985.

The novel takes place in New France and follows Father Laforgue, a French Jesuit priest travelling up river to repopulate the mission to the Huron Indians. The novel chronicles his interactions with the "heathen" tribes of Algonkian (friendly) and Iroquois (unfriendly) as well as his inner struggles of faith, as he travels upriver to bring salvation to the Hurons.

From review: "A central aspect of Black Robe is the clash of different cultures. The Indian way of life is frightenly unlike the culture of Laforgue or our modern Western one descended from his. All contact is governed by the mutual incomprehension of the French and the natives of each other's customs and thinking, a barrier much harder to overcome than the comparatively simple language one. Moore draws his descriptions of the Indians from the Relations, the actual letters the Jesuits sent back to their superiors in France. The resulting picture is very unlike that found in most popular fiction, and more alien than a good many SF writers' attempts at portraying extraterrestrial cultures. The book painfully shows that the mere contact with strangers can destroy a delicate culture such as that of the Huron and Algonkin nations. [http://sites.inka.de/mips/reviews/BlackRobe.html] "

The book was adapted into the 1991 film of the same title directed by Bruce Beresford and with Moore himself writing the screenplay.

Translations

* Italian: "Manto nero", trans. M. Murzi, Narrativa Piemme, 1992, ISBN 8838416532
* German: "Schwarzrock". Roman, trans. Otto von Bayer, Diogenes Zürich 1987¹, ISBN 3257217552
* Polish: "Czarna suknia", trans. Andrzej Pawelec, Graffiti Kraków 1992¹, ISBN 9788385695202