Ismaÿl Urbain

Thomas Urbain was born on 31 December 1812 in Cayenne, the son of a Marseille merchant and a Guianese woman of colour. A Saint-Simonian and secretary to Gustave d'Eichthal, he left for the East in 1833, taught French at Damietta, in Egypt, and converted to Islam in 1835 under the name Ismaÿl. A military interpreter in Algeria from 1837, he became adviser to the governor-general and to Napoleon III. He died in Algiers on 28 January 1884.

In the catalogue 1

• EssayL'Algérie pour les AlgériensIsmaÿl Urbain · 1861not translated into EnglishLiterature