Twelve Years a Slave

With a new introduction, Northup's memoir reveals the living truth of slavery, poverty and racism in a world set apart from elite metropolitan lifestyles.

The 1853 memoir and slave narrative by Solomon Northup as told to and written by David Wilson. Northup, a black man who was born free in New York, relates his tale, of being tricked to go to Washington, D.C., where he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Deep South. He was in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana before smuggling information to friends and family in New York, who in turn secured his release with the aid of the state. Northup's account provides extensive details on the slave markets in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans, and describes the cotton and sugar cultivation and slave treatment on major plantations in Louisiana.

Foundations of Black Science Fiction. New forewords and fresh introductions give long-overdue perspectives on significant, early Black proto-sci-fi and speculative fiction authors who wrote with natural justice and civil rights in their hearts, their voices reaching forward to the writers of today. The series foreword is by Dr Sandra Grayson.

Solomon Northup was an American abolitionist, a free-born African American from New York. A farmer and a professional violinist, Northup had been a landowner in Washington County, New York. In 1841, he was offered a traveling musician's job and went to Washington, D.C. (where slavery was legal) but he was drugged, kidnapped, and sold as a slave. His story has been popularised on screen, and remains powerful and relevant.