Slave narrative - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

See also Captivity narrative
Captivity narrative
Captivity narratives are stories of people captured by "uncivilized" enemies. The narratives often include a theme of redemption by faith in the face of the threats and temptations of an alien way of life. Barbary captivity narratives, stories of Englishmen captured by Barbary pirates, were popular...

The slave narrative is a literary form which grew out of the written accounts of enslaved Africans in Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

and its colonies

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

, including the later United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

and Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

nations. Some six thousand former slaves from North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

and the Caribbean

Caribbean

gave accounts of their lives during the 18th and 19th centuries, with about 150 narratives published as separate books or pamphlets. In the 1930s in the United States, during the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

, additional oral narratives on life during slavery were collected by writers sponsored and published by the Works Progress Administration

Works Progress Administration

The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...

(WPA) of the President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

's administration.

Some of the earliest memoir

Memoir

A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...

s of enslavement were written by white Europeans and Americans

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

captured and enslaved in North Africa

North Africa

North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...

, usually by Barbary pirates. These were part of a broad category of "captivity narratives", which later included accounts by colonists and American settlers in North America and the United States who were captured and held by Native Americans

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

. Several well-known ones were published before the American Revolution

American Revolution

The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

. Later accounts were by Americans captured by western tribes during 19th century migrations.

In addition, the division between slaves and prisoners of war, for example, was not always clear. A broader name for the genre

Genre

Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...

is "captivity literature". As more attention is paid to the problem of contemporary slavery in the 20th and 21st centuries, additional slave narratives are written and published.

North American slave narratives

Slave narratives by slaves from North America were first published in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

in the 18th century, and they soon became a mainstay of African-American literature. Slave narratives were publicized by abolitionists. During the first half of the 19th century, the controversy over slavery in the United States led to impassioned literature on both sides of the issue. In addition to first-person accounts, novels such as Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman....

(1852) represented the abolitionist view of the evils of slavery. The so-called anti-Tom novels by white

White people

White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...

, southern writers

Southern literature

Southern literature is defined as American literature about the Southern United States or by writers from this region...

, such as William Gilmore Simms

William Gilmore Simms

William Gilmore Simms was a poet, novelist and historian from the American South. His writings achieved great prominence during the 19th century, with Edgar Allan Poe pronouncing him the best novelist America had ever produced...

, represented the pro-slavery viewpoint.

To present the reality of slavery, a number of former slaves such as Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...

published accounts of their enslavement. Eventually some six thousand former slaves from North America and the Caribbean wrote accounts of their lives, with about 150 of these published as separate books or pamphlets.

These can be broadly categorized into three distinct forms: tales of religious redemption, tales to inspire the abolitionist struggle, and tales of progress. The tales written to inspire the abolitionist struggle are the most famous because they tend to have a strong autobiographical motif, such as in Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass

's autobiographies and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a book that was published in 1861 by Harriet Jacobs, using the pen name "Linda Brent". While on one level it chronicles the experiences of Harriet Jacobs as a slave, and the various humiliations she had to endure in that unhappy state, it also deals with...

by Harriet Jacobs (1861).

Tales of religious redemption

From the 1770s to the 1820s, the slave narratives generally gave an account of a spiritual journey leading to Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

redemption. The authors usually characterized themselves as Africans rather than slaves.

Examples include:

A Narrative of the Most remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert 'Ukawsaw Gronniosaw', an African Prince, by Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, also known as James Albert, was a freed slave and autobiographer. His autobiography is considered the first published by an African in Britain.-The autobiography:...

, Bath, England: 1772
The Interesting Narrative and the life of 'Olaudah Equiano' or Gustavus Vassa, the African, by Olaudah Equiano
Olaudah Equiano
Olaudah Equiano also known as Gustavus Vassa, was a prominent African involved in the British movement towards the abolition of the slave trade. His autobiography depicted the horrors of slavery and helped influence British lawmakers to abolish the slave trade through the Slave Trade Act of 1807...

, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

: 1789
A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a native of Africa: But resident Above Sixty Years in the United State of America, by Venture Smith
Venture Smith
Venture Smith was an African captured as a child and transported to the American colonies to be sold as a slave. As an adult, he purchased his freedom and that of his family...

, New London
New London, Connecticut
New London is a seaport city and a port of entry on the northeast coast of the United States.It is located at the mouth of the Thames River in New London County, southeastern Connecticut....

: 1798
The Blind African Slave, Or Memoirs of Boyrereau Brinch, Nicknamed Jeffrey Brace, by Jeffrey Brace as told to Benjamin F. Prentiss, Esq., St. Albans, Vermont
St. Albans (town), Vermont
St. Albans is a town in Franklin County, Vermont. The population was 6,392 at the 2010 census. The town completely surrounds the city of St. Albans, which was separated from the town and incorporated in 1902. References to "St. Albans" prior to this date generally refer to the town center, which...

: 1810; edited and with an introduction by Kari J. Winter, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press
University of Wisconsin Press
The University of Wisconsin Press is a non-profit university press publishing peer-reviewed books and journals. It primarily publishes work by scholars from the global academic community but also serves the citizens of Wisconsin by publishing important books about Wisconsin, the Upper Midwest, and...

, 2004, ISBN 0-299-20140-6)

Tales to inspire the abolitionist struggle

From the mid-1820s the genre became much more the conscious use of the autobiographical form to generate enthusiasms for the abolitionist struggle. They became more literary in form often with the introduction of fictionalized dialogue. Between 1835 and 1865 over 80 such narratives were published. Recurrent features include: slave auctions, the break-up of families and frequently two accounts of escapes, one of which is successful.

Examples include:

Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

1825
The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

1831
Slavery in the United States: A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Charles Ball, A Black Man, Lewistown 1836
A Narrative of Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper from American Slavery, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

1837
A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

1845
Narratives of the Sufferings of Lewis and Milton Clarke, Sons of a Soldier of the revolution, during a Captivity of more than Twenty years among the Slaveholders of Kentucky, Boston 1846
Narrative of William Wells Brown, a fugitive Slave, Boston 1847
The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself (1849), Boston 1849
Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

1849
The Fugitive Blacksmith, or Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

1849
Twelve Years a Slave
Twelve Years a Slave
Twelve Years a Slave is the written work of Solomon Northup - a man who was born free, but was bound into slavery later in life.-Synopsis:The book, which was originally published in 1853, tells...

, narrative of Solomon Northup
Solomon Northup
Solomon Northup was a free-born African-American mulatto. He was born in Minerva, Essex County, New York. He disappeared in 1863.-Family history:...

, Auburn, Buffalo
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...

and London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

1853
Slave Life in Georgia: A Narrative of the Life, Sufferings and Escape of John Brown, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

1855 ISBN 0-8369-8865-5
The Life of John Thompson, A Fugitive Slave, Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester is a city and the county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, as of the 2010 Census the city's population is 181,045, making it the second largest city in New England after Boston....

1855
The Kidnapped and the Ransomed, Being the Personal Recollections of Peter Still and his Wife "Vina," after Forty Years of Slavery, by Kate E. R. Pickard, New York, 1856
Running a thousand Miles for Freedom, or the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

1860
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a book that was published in 1861 by Harriet Jacobs, using the pen name "Linda Brent". While on one level it chronicles the experiences of Harriet Jacobs as a slave, and the various humiliations she had to endure in that unhappy state, it also deals with...

, by Harriet Jacobs, Boston 1861
The Experience of a Slave in South Carolina by John Andrew Jackson
John Andrew Jackson
John Andrew Rhodes Jackson was born on a Country plantation in Sumter County, South Carolina. His grandfather was a stolen slave from Africa. John Andrew's mother was named Betty and his father was known as Dr. Clavern, because of his ability to cure snake bites. John Andrew had five brothers and...

, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

1862
Narrative of the Life of J. D. Green, a Runaway Slave from Kentucky, Huddersfield
Huddersfield
Huddersfield is a large market town within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England, situated halfway between Leeds and Manchester. It lies north of London, and south of Bradford, the nearest city....

1864
Mary Reynolds (ex-slave) Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

, 1827

Tales of progress

Following the defeat of the slave states of the Confederate South

Confederate States of America

The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...

, the narratives lost their urgency and were less concerned with conveying the evils of slavery. Some times they even gave a sentimental account of plantation life and also often ended with the narrator adjusting to their new life of freedom. In this the emphasis frequently shifted conceptually more towards progress than freedom

Freedom (political)

Political freedom is a central philosophy in Western history and political thought, and one of the most important features of democratic societies...

.

Examples include:

The Life of James Mars, A Slave Born and Sold in Connecticut, Hartford
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...

1864
From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or, Struggles for Freedom, by Lucy Delaney
Lucy Delaney
Lucy Ann Delaney, born Lucy Berry , was an African-American author, former slave, and activist, notable for her 1891 narrative From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or, Struggles for Freedom...

1892
The Freedman's Story by William Parker, published in The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...

1866
Thirty Years a Slave: From Bondage to Freedom by Louis Hughes, Milwaukee 1897
Up From Slavery
Up From Slavery
Up from Slavery is the 1901 autobiography of Booker T. Washington detailing his slow and steady rise from a slave child during the Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an education at the new Hampton University, to his work establishing vocational schools—most notably the...

by Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915...

Garden City, New York
Garden City, New York
Garden City is a village in the town of Hempstead in central Nassau County, New York, in the United States. It was founded by multi-millionaire Alexander Turney Stewart in 1869, and is located on Long Island, to the east of New York City, from mid-town Manhattan, and just south of the town of...

1901

WPA slave narratives

During the Great Depression

Great Depression

the New Deal

New Deal

The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...

Works Projects Administration (WPA) used unemployed writers and researchers from the Federal Writers' Project

Federal Writers' Project

The Federal Writers' Project was a United States federal government project to fund written work and support writers during the Great Depression. It was part of the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program...

to interview and document the stories of surviving African-Americans who had been part of the American slave system up until the Thirteenth Amendment

Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. It was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, passed by the House on January 31, 1865, and adopted on December 6, 1865. On...

. Produced between 1936 and 1938, the narratives retell the experiences of more than 2,300 former slaves.

North African slave narratives

In comparison to North American and Caribbean slave narratives, the North African slave narratives were written by white

White people

White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

ans and Americans

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

captured and enslaved in North Africa in the 18th and early 19th centuries. They have a distinct form in that they highlight the otherness of their Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

ic enslavers, whereas the African American slave narratives call their fellow Christian

Christian

enslavers to account.

Examples include:

The History of the Long Captivity and Adventures of Thomas Pellow, In South Barbary, 1740
A Curious, Historical and Entertaining Narrative of the Captivity and almost unheard of Sufferings and Cruel treatment of Mr Robert White, 1790
A Journal of the Captivity and Suffering of John Foss; Several Years a Prisoner in Algiers 1798
History of the Captivity and Sufferings of Mrs Marian Martin who was six years a slave in Algiers, 1810
History of the Captivity and Sufferings of Mrs Lucinda Martin who was six years a slave in Algiers, 1806
The Narrative of Robert Adams, An American Sailor who was wrecked on the West Coast of Africa in the year 1810; was detained Three Years in Slavery by the Arabs of the Great Desert, 1817

Other historical slave narratives

As slavery has been practised all over the world for millennia, some narratives cover places and times other than these main two. One example is the account given by John R. Jewitt

John R. Jewitt

John Rodgers Jewitt was an armourer who entered the historical record with his memoirs about the 28 months he spent as a captive of Maquinna of the Nuu-chah-nulth people on the Pacific Northwest Coast of what is now Canada...

, an English armourer enslaved for years by Maquina of the Nootka

Nootka

Nootka may refer to:* The Nuu-chah-nulth indigenous peoples and their Nuu-chah-nulth language* The place called Nootka Sound* The island known as Nootka Island* The three treaties signed in the 1790s, known as the Nootka Conventions...

people in the Pacific Northwest

Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...

. The Canadian Encyclopedia calls his memoir a "classic of captivity literature" and it is a rich source of information about the indigenous people of Vancouver Island

Vancouver Island

Vancouver Island is a large island in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several North American locations named after George Vancouver, the British Royal Navy officer who explored the Pacific Northwest coast of North America between 1791 and 1794...

Narrative of the Adventures and Sufferings of John R. Jewitt, only survivor of the crew of the ship Boston, during a captivity of nearly three years among the savages of Nootka Sound: with an account of the manners, mode of living, and religious opinions of the natives. Middletown, Connecticut, printed by Loomis and Richards, 1815. Full digital text available here.

Contemporary slave narratives

A contemporary slave narrative is a memoir published now, written by a former slave, or ghost-written on their behalf.

Examples include:

Escape from Slavery: The True Story of My Ten Years in Captivity – and My Journey to Freedom in America (2003) by Francis Bok
Francis Bok
Francis Piol Bol Bok , a Dinka tribesman and native of South Sudan, was a slave for ten years but is now an abolitionist and author living in the United States. On May 15, 1986, he was captured and enslaved at age seven during an Arab militia raid on the village of Nymlal in South Sudan during the...

and Edward Tivnan
Restavec by Jean-Robert Cadet vividly recounted his life as a restavec
Restavec
A restavec is a child in Haiti who is sent by their parents to work for a host household as a domestic servant because the parents lack the resources required to support the child...

in Haiti
"Peter's story", by Peter Doyle, in A tribute to The Lost People of Arlington House, The National Archives, London 2004
Slave by Mende Nazer
Mende Nazer
Mende Nazer is a British author and human rights activist. For eight years, she was a slave in Sudan and in London.-Abduction:Nazer is a Nuba from a village in the Nuba mountains of Sudan. At the age of twelve or thirteen , she was abducted and sold into slavery in Sudan following a slaving raid...

and Damien Lewis
"Unchained Memories
Unchained Memories
Unchained Memories is a 2003 documentary films about the stories of former slaves interviewed during the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project. This HBO film interpretation directed by Ed Bell and Thomas Lennon is a compilation of slave narratives, narrated by actors, emulating the...

" An HBO documentary with readings from slave narratives (2003)

Neo-slave narratives

A neo-slave narrative is an account of slavery written in contemporary times. The authors use their imagination, oral histories, and already-existing slave narratives to construct these stories. They are not writing of their own experiences, or acting as an amanuensis

Amanuensis

Amanuensis is a Latin word adopted in various languages, including English, for certain persons performing a function by hand, either writing down the words of another or performing manual labour...

for a former slave. They may be classified as novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

s.

Examples include:

Octavia E. Butler
Octavia E. Butler
Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction writer, one of the best-known among the few African-American women in the field. She won both Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant.- Background :Butler...

's Kindred
Kindred (novel)
Kindred is a 1979 novel by Octavia Butler. While most of Butler's work is classified as science fiction, Kindred is often shelved in literature or African-American literature and Butler herself categorized it as "a kind of grim fantasy"....
David Anthony Durham
David Anthony Durham
David Anthony Durham is an American novelist, author of historical fiction and fantasy.Durham's first novel, Gabriel's Story, centered on African American settlers in the American West. Walk Through Darkness followed a runaway slave during the tense times leading up to the American Civil War...

's Walk Through Darkness
Walk Through Darkness
Walk Through Darkness is a critically acclaimed 2002 novel by American author David Anthony Durham.- Publication details :*Written by David Anthony Durham*First published: Doubleday, United States, 2002.*Also published in Portuguese...
Marie-Elena John
Marie-Elena John
Marie-Elena John is a Caribbean writer whose first novel, Unburnable, was published in 2006. She was born and raised in Antigua and is a former development specialist of the African Development Foundation, the World Council of Churches’ Program to Combat Racism, and Global Rights , where she...

's Unburnable
Unburnable
Unburnable, a novel published in 2006 by HarperCollins/Amistad, was penned by Caribbean writer Marie-Elena John , who spent a career as an Africa Development specialist in New York and Washington, D.C. prior to turning to writing. Unburnable is her debut novel...
Edward P. Jones
Edward P. Jones
Edward Paul Jones is an American novelist and short story writer. His 2003 novel The Known World received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.-Biography:...

' The Known World
The Known World
The Known World is a 2003 historical novel by Edward P. Jones. It was his first novel and second book. Set in antebellum Virginia, it examines issues regarding the ownership of black slaves by free black people as well as by whites...
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved...

's Beloved
Beloved (novel)
Beloved is a novel by the American writer Toni Morrison, published in 1987. Set in 1873 just after the American Civil War , it is based on the story of the African-American slave, Margaret Garner, who escaped slavery in 1856 in Kentucky by fleeing to Ohio, a free state...
William Styron
William Styron
William Clark Styron, Jr. was an American novelist and essayist who won major literary awards for his work.For much of his career, Styron was best known for his novels, which included...

's Confessions of Nat Turner
Margaret Walker
Margaret Walker
Margaret Abigail Walker Alexander was an African-American poet and writer. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, she wrote as Margaret Walker. One of her best-known poems is For My People.-Biography:...

's Jubilee
Jubilee (novel)
Jubilee is a historical novel written by Margaret Walker, which focuses on the story of a biracial slave during the American Civil War...
Noni Carter
Noni Carter
Noni Carter is an American author from Fayetteville, Georgia, whose first book, Good Fortune, was released by Simon & Schuster in January 2010...

's Good Fortune

External links

Life of James Mars, A Slave Born and Sold in Connecticut. Written by Himself. Hartford: Case, Lockwood & Company, 1864.
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936–1938 on loc.gov
North American Slave Narratives, Beginnings to 1920 on docsouth.unc.edu
Robert E. Lee's Slave
Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology oral histories of former U.S. slaves collected in the 1930s by the WPA from American Studies at the University of Virginia
eTexts of oral history of former U.S. slaves collected in the 1930s by the WPA, at Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
Brief Description of the American Slave Narrative at the Literary Movements site
Audio presentation and podcast of slave narratives at Museum of the African Diaspora
Review Essay: Francis Bok's Escape from Slavery and Contemporary Slave Narratives by Joe Lockhard, June 2004
MacKethan, Lucinda. "Plantation Romances and Slave Narratives: Symbiotic Genres." Southern Spaces, March 4, 2004, http://southernspaces.org/2004/plantation-romances-and-slave-narratives-symbiotic-genres.

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