The first book to be discussed is "The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings" by Olaudah Equiano. It is an exciting and often terrifying adventure story, as well as an important precursor to such famous nineteenth-century slave narratives as Frederick Douglass's autobiographies, Olaudah Equiano's The Interesting Narrative recounts his kidnapping in Africa at the age of ten, his service as the slave of an officer in the British Navy, his ten years of labor on slave ships until he was able to purchase his freedom in 1766, and his life afterward as a leading and respected figure in the antislavery movement in England. A spirited autobiography, a tale of spiritual quest and fulfillment, and a sophisticated treatise on religion, politics, and economics, The Interesting Narrative is a work of enduring literary and historical value.( Carretta, Vincent)
Equiano's account commonly a clear, crisply written and cynical account with thorough descriptions of the places he visits, with the occasional sermon or rare florid description shows a whirlwind series of adventures, from his time as an Igbo village prince, to his enslavement and trek to the African coast under a series of masters, to his horrendous voyage across the middle passage, his amazement at the terrifying new world he was brought into, his conversion to Christianity, his service in the Seven Years War, his attempts to buy his freedom, and his varying adventures as a sailor. The account goes on to include his disastrous expedition to the North Pole and subsequent spiritual crisis upon such a close touch with his mortality, his management as a commissar for an attempt to settle freed blacks in Sierra Leonne, and, finally, his marriage (something touched on very cursorily, perhaps because he didn't wish to add too much to new editions of the book, which was initially completed before his marriage, or possibly because he was very busy raising his daughters, lecturing, and testifying for the abolitionist cause).....................
