L'Africa fantasma (L'Afrique fantôme, 1934) is the published diary of the Dakar–Djibouti ethnographic expedition organised in 1931–1933 by the Musée de l'Homme under Marcel Griaule, in which Michel Leiris participated as archivist and secretary. Along this diary – in which events, observations, dreams and ideas are noted pell-mell – Leiris becomes aware of himself, of the impossibility of objective reporting of a colonial mission, and how every fieldwork experience has an initiatory and non-didactic value. The volume, sequestered during the Vichy Republic, had two further editions in 1951 and 1981 revised by Leiris himself, becoming his most celebrated work and a classic of travel literature, not only of the 20th century. Together with Heart of Darkness it is considered one of the most important books written by a Westerner on Africa. After many years, L'Africa fantasma is now available again to Italian readers, edited by Barbara Fiore.