eSource: Nearer My Freedom

“Permit me to lay at your feet

the following genuine

Narrative . . .”

Olaudah Equiano was a writer and abolitionist whose autobiography, The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano, captured the attention of British readers at the height of the transatlantic slave trade. The account of his childhood in the African kingdom of Benin, the details of his kidnapping and enslavement as a young boy, and the chronicles of his life as a sailor were influential in ending the British slave trade and continue to inspire the work of academics, activists, and artists over two hundred years later.

Nearer My Freedom retells Equiano’s remarkable life story in found verse, shaping his own words into impassioned, striking poetry, allowing readers to discover it anew. Supplemented with detailed and illuminating annotations, authors Monica Edinger and Lesley Younge offer a new means to engage with one of the most famous texts of the abolition movement.