The Book is on economic exploitation in the pearl-fishing industry. Londres studied the men who dive in search of pearl oysters, off the Horn of Africa. He observes the misery that afflicts fishermen (blindness, deafness), and the cynicism of brokers and political systems, but also the poetry and dreams of fortune of the Red Sea divers.

Albert Londres (1884 - 1932) was a French journalist and writer. One of the inventors of investigative journalism, he criticized the abuses of colonialism such as forced labour in some of his articles. Albert Londres gave his name to a famous journalism prize for French journalists.