Endore, who spoke French, decided to write a romance set against the backdrop of the Haitian Revolution, and went to Haiti to conduct research on the slave trade.

Endore created a fictionalized version named Babouk, but he also used his story to try to tell an anti-capitalist parable that borrowed much of its philosophy from Karl Marx.

The book was not successful, and it languished in obscurity until it was chosen by the leftist journal Monthly Review to be published as part of its "Voices of Resistance" series.

The republished novel included a foreword by writer Jamaica Kincaid and an afterword by historians David Barry Gaspar and Michel-Rolph Trouillot.

Unaware of the reasons for his capture and hoping to be reunited with his lost love Niati, Babouk escapes his slave compound and wanders into the forest, only to meet some indigenous Americans.

Endore also makes the point of comparing racist practices of the eighteenth century with contemporary ones, and rejects the notion that men are treated equally in the United States, even if that is what the Constitution claims.

Babouk's narrative voice is also heavily infused with irony, often taking the side of the slave masters or pro-slavery ideologues in an effort to further highlight what he sees as the absurdity of their position.