Editing André Gide (section)

==Africa==
From July 1926 to May 1927, Gide traveled through the colony of [[French Equatorial Africa]] with his lover [[Marc Allégret]]. They went successively to Middle Congo (now the Republic of the Congo), Ubangi-Shari (now the Central African Republic), briefly to Chad and then to Cameroon. He kept a journal, which he published as ''[[Travels in the Congo (book)|Travels in the Congo]]'' (French: ''Voyage au Congo'') and ''Return from Chad'' (French: ''Retour du Tchad'').<ref name="Nobel"/> 

In this work, he criticized the behavior of French business interests in the Congo and inspired reform.<ref name="Nobel"/> In particular, he strongly criticized the ''Large Concessions'' regime (French: ''Régime des Grandes Concessions''). The government had conceded part of the colony to French companies, allowing them to exploit the area's natural resources, in particular rubber. He related that native workers were forced to leave their village for several weeks to collect rubber in the forest, and compared their [[exploitation of labour|exploitation]] by the companies to slavery. The book contributed to the growing [[anti-colonialism]] movements in France and helped thinkers to re-evaluate the [[Impact of Western European colonialism and colonisation|effects of colonialism]] in Africa.<ref>[http://www.lire.fr/critique.asp/idC=31184/idR=219/idTC=3/idG=2 Voyage au Congo suivi du Retour du Tchad]  {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070316041458/http://www.lire.fr/critique.asp/idC%3D31184/idR%3D219/idTC%3D3/idG%3D2 |date=16 March 2007 }}, in ''[[Lire (magazine)|Lire]]'', July–August 1995 {{in lang|fr}}</ref>