Barracoon The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"

New York Times BestsellerAmazons Best History Book of the Year 2018TIME Magazine?COs Best Nonfiction Book of 2018New York Public Library?COs Best Book of 2018NPR?COs Book Concierge Best Book of 2018Economist Book of the YearSELF.com?COs Best Books of 2018Audible?COs Best of the YearBookRiot?COs Best Audio Books of 2018The Atlantic?COs Books Briefing: History, ReconsideredAtlanta Journal Constitution, Best Southern Books 2018 The Christian Science Monitor?COs Best Books 2018Barnes & Noble?COs Best Books of the Year ?C?ATaprofound impact on Hurston?COs literary legacy.?C??CoNew York Times?C?One of the greatest writers of our time.?C??CoToni Morrison?C?Zora Neale Hurston?COs genius has once again produced a Maestrapiece.?C??CoAlice WalkerA major literary event: aTanewly published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God, with aTaforeword from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker,Tabrilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last-known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade?Coabducted from Africa on the last "Black Cargo" ship to arrive in the United States.In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile,Tato interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation?COs history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo?COs firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo?COs past?Comemories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War.Based on those interviews, featuring Cudjo?COs unique vernacular, and written from Hurston?COs perspective with the compassion and singular style that have made her one of the preeminent American authors of the twentieth-century, BarracoonTamasterfully illustratesTathe tragedy of slavery and of one life forever defined by it. Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, black and white, this poignant and powerful work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture.