The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: or, Gustavus Vassa, the African (Modern Library Classics)

Edited and with Notes by Shelly Eversley
Introduction by Robert Reid-Pharr

In this truly astonishing eighteenth-century memoir, Olaudah Equiano recounts his remarkable life story, which begins when he is kidnapped in Africa as a boy and sold into slavery and culminates when he has achieved renown as a British antislavery advocate. The narrative “is a strikingly beautiful monument to the startling combination of skill, cunning, and plain good luck that allowed him to win his freedom, write his story, and gain international prominence,” writes Robert Reid-Pharr in his Introduction. “He alerts us to the very concerns that trouble modern intellectuals, black, white, and otherwise, on both sides of the Atlantic.”

The text of this Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the definitive ninth edition of 1794, reflecting the author’s final changes to his masterwork.

About the Introducer: ROBERT REID-PHARR, one of the country’s leading scholars of early African-American literature, is a professor of English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He lives in Brooklyn.

About the Editor: SHELLY EVERSLEY is an assistant professor of American literature at Baruch College, specializing in African-American literature and culture. She is the author of Integration and Its Discontents and coeditor of Race and Sexuality.