After 87 Years, Zora Neale Hurston’s First Book About America’s Final Slave Ship Survivor To Be Published This Month

By Renese via http://madamenoire.com

We all know Zora Neale Hurston from her brilliant novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Whether you read it on your own or it was required school reading, I’m sure you were forever-effected by its coming-of-age story about a young black woman in the early 20th century. Although this is her most well-known work, it is not her first. In fact, “Barracoon” was.

We told you back in December about this, and now, it will be available to the public on May 8. According to The New York Times, when Hurston finished the work in 1931, no one wanted to publish it. The reasons why might shock you.

In 1931, Zora Neale Hurston wrote the story of Cudjo Lewis, who was believed to be the last living person brought to America on a slave ship. It was never published — until now. https://t.co/n7xpQ04D1l

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 1, 2018

First, the 117-page manuscript is named after the barracks that enslaved Africans were kept in before they were forced onto slave ships. “Barracoon” tells the story of Cudjo Lewis, a man believed to be the last slave to land on American shores. Lewis tells his own account of being captured by Dahomey warriors in West Africa, and how he was sold to slavers and taken to Mobile, Alabama in 1859. Keep in mind that this was more than 50 years after the United States Congress had outlawed …

Read More: After 87 Years, Zora Neale Hurston’s First Book About America’s Final Slave Ship Survivor To Be Published This Month