The Confessions of Nat Turner
In the late summer of 1831, in a remote section of southeastern Virginia, there took place the only effective, sustained revolt in the annals of American Negro slavery...The revolt was led by a remarkable Negro preacher named Nat Turner, an educated slave who felt himself divinely ordained to...
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In the late summer of 1831, in a remote section of southeastern Virginia, there took place the only effective, sustained revolt in the annals of American Negro slavery...The revolt was led by a remarkable Negro preacher named Nat Turner, an educated slave who felt himself divinely ordained to annihilate all the white people in the region.The Confessions of Nat Turner is narrated by Nat himself as he lingers in jail through the cold autumnal days before his execution. The compelling story ranges over the whole of Nat's Life, reaching its inevitable and shattering climax that bloody day in August. The Confessions of Nat Turner is not only a masterpiece of storytelling; is also reveals in unforgettable human terms the agonizing essence of Negro slavery. Through the mind of a slave, Willie Styron has re-created a catastrophic event, and dramatized the intermingled miseries, frustrations--and hopes--which caused this extraordinary black man to rise up out of the early mists of our history and strike down those who held his people in bondage.From the Hardcover edition.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780679736639 (0679736638)
ASIN: 679736638
Publish date: November 10th 1992
Publisher: Vintage
Pages no: 480
Edition language: English
Category:
Classics,
Novels,
History,
Literature,
Cultural,
American,
Historical Fiction,
Literary Fiction,
African American,
American History,
Fiction,
Historical
"Each of us, helplessly and forever, contains the other -- male in female, female in male, white in black, and black in white. We are part of each other." - James BaldwinI became interested in reading The Confessions of Nat Turner after reading Alexandra Styron's biography of her father. It was one ...
This book caused quite a controversy when it came out in 1967, and judging from some of the reviews here and on Amazon, it's continuing to do so. I didn't know about any of that when I started it, but the more I read the novel, the more dissatisfying and even irresponsible it started to seem.Some ha...
Probably my favorite American novel.