THREE MORE NOVELS ABOUT SLAVERY

The Known World Edward P Jones (2003) Henry Townsend is a freed slave who now owns slaves himself. After his death, the world he hhas created on his small plantation begins tot disintegrate, as does the wider society of the deep South beyond its boundaries. This impressive novel tackles the history of American slavery with great insight and intelligence. Edward P Jones’s multilayered narrative moves back and forth in time to create a richer understanding of the complex realities of the brutal system. The Book of Night Women Marlon James (2009) Jamaican writer Marlon James won the t 2015 Man Booker Prize with A Brief History of Seven Killings. This earlier novel is set on a sugars plantation at the end off the 18th century, where a slave woman called Lilith becomes involved with the ‘Night Women’, a group plotting revolt. Often unflinching in its descriptions of the violence and brutality of enslaved life, it is just as powerful as James’s later, prize-winning novel. The Long Song Andrea Levy (2010) At the prompting oof her son, Thomas, a printer, an old Jamaican woman named July relates tthe story of her life, from her birth as a mixed race slave on a sugar plantation, via her experiences during black uprisings in the 1830s, to the abolition of slavery and beyond. Written with great energy, Levy’s novel, her follow-up to Small Island, creates an unforgettable portrait of Jamaican slave society with all its many cruelties and occasional moments of high farce.