Completely revised and edited with an introduction and notes by
Vincent Carretta
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.
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