the confessions of nat turner by william styron

By the end of the book, as he really tries to ratchet up the sense of drama, he is writing things like this: This is from his introductory remarks on the first page. It may be the commencement of spring or perhaps the end of summer it matters less what the season is than that the air is almost seasonless – benign and neutral, windless, devoid of heat or cold. Yet the register of his narration is jarringly elevated: Nat has scrabbled together a self-taught literacy through a study of the Bible. The book is narrated by Nat Turner, the poor and uneducated slave who led a rebellion against white society in 1831. The book may have won the Pulitzer, but for me it has two major problems: the narrative voice is wildly inappropriate and the characterisation is on ethically shaky ground. Some have traced the outcry which followed its release to the simple fact that a white Virginian author was writing his way into the mind of a 19th century black slave, but that is hardly the issue. I didn't know about any of that when I started it, but the more I read the novel, the more dissatisfying and even irresponsible it started to seem. This book caused quite a controversy when it came out in 1967, and judging from some of the reviews here and on Amazon, it's continuing to do so.

This ebook features a new illustrated biography of William Styron, including original letters, rare photos, and never-before-seen documents from the Styron family and the Duke University Archives.

Nat Turner is a galvanizing portrayal of the crushing institution of slavery, and Styron’s deeply layered characterization is a stunning rendering of one man’s violent struggle against oppression. This powerful narrative, steeped in the brutal and tragic history of American slavery, reveals a Turner who is neither a hero nor a demon, but rather a man driven to exact vengeance for the centuries of injustice inflicted upon his people. Published at the height of the civil rights movement, the novel draws upon the historical Nat Turner’s confession to his attorney, made as he awaited execution in a Virginia jail. The Confessions of Nat Turner is William Styron’s complex and richly drawn imagining of Nat Turner, the leader of the 1831 slave rebellion in Virginia that led to the deaths of almost sixty men, women, and children. The explosive 1967 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, a gripping and unforgettable portrait of the leader of America’s bloodiest slave revolt

The confessions of nat turner by william styron