Penned by Victor Sejour (1817-1874), a francophone Creole native of Louisiana of African descent, The Fortune-Teller (ital) was first performed in French in 1859, just one year after six-year-old Edgardo Mortara was removed from his Jewish home by the Bologna inquisitor after being baptized by a maid. The inquisitor, supported by Pope Pius IX, vowed not to return the boy until his parents converted to Catholicism. In Victor Sejour's touching rendering of the Mortara case, the infant girl Noemi (accent over e) is taken from her Jewish family after being baptized by a wet nurse. Seventeen years later, Noemi's widowed and wealthy mother Gemea (accent over 2nd e) masquerades as a poor fortune-teller in search of Noemi. Featuring a stirring translation by Shapiro and a thoroughly engaging introduction by Weiss, this provocative and important historical drama, written by a Creole "free person" of color, highlights the discrimination not only of Sejour's time, but of ours as well. This is a new and revised edition of a book originally published by the university of Illinois. Also available: Sejour's The Jew of Seville, translated by Norman R. Shapiro with an introduction by M. Lynn Weiss

On June 2, 1817 Juan Victor Séjour was born in New Orleans to François Marcou, a free mulatto father from Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and Eloisa Philippe Ferrand, a New Orleans quadroon. His parents were wealthy, and had him educated in a private school. At the age of nineteen he moved to Paris to continue his education and find work. There he met members of the Parisian literary elite, including Cyrille Bissette, publisher of the black-owned journal La Revue des Colonies. Bisette published "Le Mulâtre", Séjour's first work, in 1837. A popular playwright of huis time, he once had three plays running at the same time in Paris. The Fortune Teller is considered one of his best plays.

Translator Norman R. Shapiro is a renowned translator of poetry and plays from the French.. His books and awards are numerous and he was recently decorated by the French government for his service to the history of French literature.

M. Lynn Weiss is associate professor of American studies at the College of William and Mary. This is her third collaboration with Norman R. Shapiro, and the second of Sejour's plays, the other being the Jew of Seville, also published by Second Line Press.