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Shange and Bayeza give us a monumental story of a family and of America, of songs and why we have to sing them, of home and of heartbreak, of the past and of the future, bright and blazing ahead.

In 1946, a storm-wrecked boat carrying Hollywood’s most famous swashbuckler shored up on the coast of Jamaica, and the glamorous world of 1940’s Hollywood converged with that of a small West Indian society.

This is a story about men whose lives began in slavery, who weathered the Civil War; newly freed men who have to fight for their liberties, hoping the federal government will come to their aid. But after a deadly racial massacre, once-proud families are left to deal with the wreckage and find the strength to push on.

A black farmer, bootmaker and former slave becomes proprietor of his own plantation, as well as of his own slaves, in this ambitious, luminously written novel that ranges seamlessly between the past and future and back again to the present. Excerpt contains content exclusive to BookBrowse.

Written in the 1850's by a runaway slave (and recently discovered and edited by Professor Gates), this fictionalized biography offers a unique and unforgettable reading experience and is the only known novel by a female African American slave, and quite possibly the first novel written by a black woman anywhere.

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