Corsairs, Captives, Converts in Early Modernity

Corsairs, Captives, Converts is a broad study of the transnational early
modern phenomenon of the Barbary captivity narrative: autobiographical
reports by former captives in the North African Maghreb, who
had become victims of the so-called Barbary corsairs. These pirates,
based in Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco, roamed the Mediterranean
from the late sixteenth to the early nineteenth century, taking
trade goods and, in particular, crew members for enslavement and the
extortion of ransom. Within this timespan, the Barbary captivity narrative
spread across Europe and America. This text type illustrates and
reflects the gradual transformation of reported fact into narrative fiction
in the context of the birth of the novel. Corsairs, Captives, Converts
is the first full-fledged study of important German Barbary narratives
from a cross-national perspective.