Congaï

New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation. 1927.

First edition. 8vo. 187x125mm. pp. [viii], 320. Original black cloth, lettered and decorated in silver. With the rare illustrated dustjacket. Some staining and marking to the cloth. The dustjacket is chipped at the top edge and to head and foot of spine and there are a small tears at the folds with the flaps which have been repaired. But this is an extremely uncommon (and very striking) dustjacket. Internally very good but with a split to the hinge with the lower cover and with some toning to the edges.
Congaï is something of a cult novel (it was reprinted in 2014). It is one of the first western novels to be set in Vietnam (Indochina), the hero is gay and travelling with his boyfriend but looking at other men through the eyes of fictional woman. It deals, with colonialism, it falls into the trap of (what was not yet called) "orientalism" in its "othering" of the sultry, sexual, opium infused East. An extraordinary novel which has been described as a "celebration of 'fluidity'".