{"product_id":"9781440649141","title":"Our Nig: or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black","description":"Harriet Wilson (1825-1900) is the first female African American to publish a novel in North America. Her first and only work, \"Our Nig: Sketches From the Life From a Free Black\" was published in 1859 and was considered lost until 1982 when rediscovered by the scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. The novel is largely autobiographical, tracking the life of a free black women in the Antebellum North. At the age of three, the protagonist Frado is abandoned by her parents and left at the house of the Bellmonts, a wealthy New England family. Her life as a free black woman in the North is filled with hardship and suffering. This realistic tale sugar coats nothing, and the reader witnesses Frado's difficult life as a servant to the family. A groundbreaking work of gender and race identity, Wilson creates a tremendous narrative central to African American history. Much in the vein of Phillis Wheatley and Langston Hughes, Harriet Wilson's novel helped begin the tradition of African American literature in America.","brand":"Penguin Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47142699139312,"sku":"9781440649141","price":4.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781440649141_p0.jpg?v=1763791487","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781440649141","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}