The hors texte illustrations by Daniel Buren reflect his hallmark style of brightly colored vertical strips while the four separate serigraphs alternate between figures with hard-edged lines and soft fur-like circular shapes.  The content of Martinique writer Aimé Césaire's book, which inspired Buren, is similarly a mix but of poetry and prose, and it explores the cultural identity of black Africans in a colonial setting.  The book was first published in 1939.

Buren designed the die-cut pages in some cases to reveal selected words or phrases from the text and, in others, to change his own striped artwork as the pages are turned.

The book is signed by the author and is blindly embossed with the artist’s initials (using a stamp designed by the artist); each serigraph is embossed with the artist’s initials. The book and the other serigraphs from this work can be seen in the collections section of this gallery’s listing under the title “Buren Pays Natal”.