The Slave's Rebellion: Literature, History, Orature

Episodes of slave rebellions such as Nat Turner's are central to
speculations on the trajectory of black history and the goal of black spiritual
struggles. Using fiction, history, and oral poetry drawn from the United States, the
Caribbean, and Africa, this book analyzes how writers reinterpret episodes of
historical slave rebellion to conceptualize their understanding of an ideal
"master-less" future. The texts range from Frederick Douglass's The Heroic
Slave and Alejo Carpentier's The Kingdom of this World to Yoruba praise poetry and
novels by Nigerian writers Adebayo Faleti and Akinwumi Isola. Each text reflects
different "national" attitudes toward the historicity of slave rebellions
that shape the ways the texts are read. This is an absorbing book about the grip of
slavery and rebellion on modern black thought.