In Modernity at Large, Arjun Appadurai observes that the past ‘is not a land to return to in a simple politics of memory. It has become a synchronic warehouse of cultural scenarios, a kind of temporal central casting, to which recourse can be taken as appropriate, depending on the movie to be made, the scene to be enacted…’ (1996: 30). For postcolonial filmmakers and writers this remark is especially relevant as many choose to rewrite canonical works or critique the hegemonic ways in which history has been told by deconstructing and reconstructing its sources and images. In the French Caribbean, the last king of Dahomey (modern-day Benin), Ahidjere Behanzin who was exiled to Martinique by the French from 1894–1906, is a figure who has played an especially important role in the casting house of (post)colonial fiction. Exile in Martinique ended with the king's return to Africa; instead of a return home, this marked another colonial displacement, this time to Algeria where he would die in 1906. In 1928, Behanzin's son, Ouanilo, arranged for Behanzin's ashes to be buried in Dahomey. Ouanilo died on his return trip from Africa to France, ‘called for, they said in Dahomey, by his father, Behanzin’ (Morton-Williams 1993: 115). During the lifetimes of Behanzin and Ouanilo, the events of the Dahomean wars, the king's exile and his son's career were the subject of popular interest in the French and colonial press (Leighten 1990: 610-13; Campion-Vincent 1967: 27–58), academic discussion (Reinsch 1905: 154) and archival collections (Frazer 1908).