The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: Revised Edition

Dawn Rolon: Information in the book

United States on Nov 03, 2023

Ronnie Mackie: To small

United States on May 27, 2023

Sonia Rhooms: I was happy with the front picture, but I wish I has ordered this book in large print. I did not realise the print was so small.

United Kingdom on Oct 17, 2021

Anonymus: Equiano's narrative is a must read for anyone interested in the Black Lives Matter movement. The story is gripping and important and the Penguin edition of the text excellent.

Germany on Nov 14, 2020

jettereader: This book arrived in excellent condition.

Canada on Aug 02, 2020

jon: Excellently written great first hand account of all that went on a must read for those who want to know the true history of the slave trade.

United Kingdom on Nov 06, 2019

Michael Ditmore: For me the first chapter was best. That's where I learned the most about the sustainable ecology of the lands Equiano came from before he was enslaved. These kinds of societies seem to be the last chance for a close examination of how relatively peaceful societies preserve ecological, practices that yielded stable societies prior to the second wave of colonization.
The second wave of colonization, with its guns and numerical superiority was able to overcome the peoples of the Interior. The period of the musket perforce restricted colonial activities to the outer fringes of the African continent: after the Advent of the rifled musket and rifle, colonists and Colonial forces were finally able to completely dominate the Peoples of Africa. This domination might truly be the African Holocaust.

United States on Sep 29, 2018

Phoebe: To call Olaudah Equiano's autobiography an "interesting narrative" is an understatement. It is the soberly written but amazing account of his life, first as an African slave in the West Indies, then later on as a well-travelled freeman who became an outspoken opponent of slavery, a public speaker and a writer. Equiano finally settled in eighteenth-century England, where he found a home. His own moral triumph over unspeakably cruel past abuse and over many grievous broken promises is not the least of this remarkable man's achievements. This book is no novel : it has the ring of truth to it. You will find it difficult to put it down once you start reading it.

France on Apr 20, 2015

Stephen Cheney-Rice: The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, is indeed an interesting autobiography that is perhaps the best known piece of Romantic era black British antislavery writing or slave narrative.

One of the most interesting things about it is that it was encouraged, published, and propagandized by white British abolitionists in the ultimately successful movement to end the slave trade in Great Britain. Another interesting aspect of the Narrative is its demonstration of the sophistication of language and the deftness of thought of its author, who was enslaved by fellow Africans in what is now Nigeria, sold to English slave traders, served on board ships and became an able seaman in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, saved his money and rose into the mercantile class, and, at the end of his full life left a considerable fortune to his daughter.

This Penguin Classics edition, introduced and edited by Vincent Carretta, includes copious but not overwhelmingly detailed notes and appendices.

If you are interested in race, class, war, Romanticism, and a compelling story, this is a book for you.

Stephen Cheney-Rice

United States on Jun 02, 2011

Luis Mansilla: For someone who have read something about Slave Trading, the life of Olaudah is a unique source of what was like to be a Slave in that period. The book published in 1789, tell a remarkable story of survival, a life of sufferings, humilliations, the struggle for getting his freedom, his fixation with England, the search for knowledge and spiritual salvation. Most of the book is interesting indeed but similar to a review made at the time, I agree that "the long account of his religious sentiments and conversion to methodism, is rather tiresome". We will never know whether Equiano came from Africa or not, but his account about the "middle passage" is by far the more touching.

United States on Mar 20, 2010