<P> "It attracted considerable attention then, much of it focused on the author's perceived artistry . There was a tendency, from the beginning, to contrast this supposed authorial virtuosity with the novel's subject matter, rather inaccurately summed up as the pervasive negativity of the human condition in Africa . This bias didn't surprise me, and I assumed it would take little time for some careful scholar to balance it by zooming in on the conceptual content of the title, which I think expresses the meaning of the text as accurately as any title can . It is a matter of some bafflement to me, therefore, that to date, as far as I know, no critical assessment has actually gone to that thematic core: the provenance of the concept and image of the beautyful ones . The phrase' The Beautiful One' is ancient, at least five thousand years old . To professional Egyptologists, it is a praise name for a central figure in Ancient Egyptian culture, the dismembered and remembered Osiris, a sorrowful reminder of our human vulnerability to division, fragmentation and degeneration, and at the same time a symbol of our equally human capacity for unity, cooperative action, and creative regeneration...I remember no special attachment to the mythic figure in those days, but by the time I wrote the novel my impressions of Osiris, though still relatively disorganised, had evolved to the point where I was ready to recognise the image as a powerful artistic icon . Here, in mythic form, was the essence of active, innovative human intelligence acting as a prime motive force for social management . I have yet to come across an earlier, or more attractive, image for the urge to positive social change ." </P> <P> Branford Marsalis recorded a 1991 jazz album of the same title . </P>

Story of the beautyful ones are not yet born