The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading): (or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Written by Himself)

By Olaudah Equiano and Rebecka Rutledge Fisher

The Interesting Narrative, published in 1789 to considerable acclaim, has been compared to Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and reviewed by Mary Wollstonecraft. Equiano's life and work took shape in an era of revolution—against slavery, against injustice, against tyranny. Moreover, Equiano's Narrative was deeply informed by the forces that have given the modern nation-state its present recognizable characteristics. Equiano effectively challenges concepts of Englishness as an absolute ethnic category. His narrative stands as one of the earliest written works of literature by an African of the diaspora, and is certainly one of the earliest works in Western history to combine the genres of spiritual autobiography, social protest, abolitionist tract, and travelogue in such a way as to mark him a significant commentator upon and a vocal critic of the ideals of the Enlightenment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Sep 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781411430365

Olaudah Equiano

Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) was a writer and abolitionist of West African descent, specifically Nigerian. His origins have been debated as some sources state his birthplace as South Carolina. Despite the discrepancy, his trying tale of survival during the Transatlantic slave trade is very true to life. Equiano detailed the harrowing experience in his autobiography The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789). It’s an early slave narrative that was used to condemn and expose the horrors of the practice.