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 crossnational perspective.