"Furman University English professor Hecimovich (Puzzling the Reader) delivers a captivating biography of Hannah Crafts. Part literary detective story, part suspenseful escape narrative, this impressive account ties together its many disparate threads into a riveting whole. It’s a must-read." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"An absorbing work of historical and literary excavation." — Kirkus Reviews
“The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts may be one of the most important case studies ever written in how to search for and find an unknown author from clues she left in her fiction and from fleeting traces of her in family archives and memories. For two decades after Henry Louis Gates, Jr. discovered The Bondwoman’s Narrative, Gregg Hecimovich pieced together historical fact and fictionalized versions to situate Hannah Crafts in a particular family of enslavers. Gregg's dramatic findings verifying Gates’s discovery are clarifying, thrilling, and provocative, demanding we return to The Bondwoman’s Narrative anew.”
— Hollis Robbins, author of Forms of Contention: Influence and the African American Sonnet Tradition
“Decades of sleuthing in the archives yielded the astonishing finds that lie behind The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts, Gregg Hecimovich’s spellbinding new biography. At once a mystery, a thriller, and an elegy, this book is a riveting reconstruction of the life—and literary influences--of the author of The Bondwoman’s Narrative (1858), the first novel written by a Black woman in the United States.” — Jill Lepore, author of Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin
“Interspersed with photos, descriptions of pertinent historical events, drawings, and digitized archival documents, this excellent biography will appeal to many readers.” — Library Journal (starred review)
“Riveting . . . . The resulting story is an inspired amalgam of genres — part thriller, part mystery and part biography. What emerges is a tale of a woman who was determined to be the protagonist of her story, regardless of what her society had in store for her. . . . [B]ooks like Hecimovich’s are a vital resource for readers who wish to engage with themselves and the wider world.” — Tope Folarin, Washington Post