Middle Passage - Tapa dura

Long after we'd stopped believing in the great American novel, along comes a spellbinding adventure story that may be just that."--Chicago Tribune

"A novel in the honorable tradition of Billy Budd and Moby Dick... heroic in proportion...fiction that hooks into the mind."--The New York Times Book Review

"A rousing adventure yarn that resonates with and echoes the spirit of early sea stories...Johnson has fashioned a tale of travel and tragedy, yearning and history, and done so from a different, rarely explored viewpoint....Middle Passage is a story of slavery, often brilliant in its structure and riveting in the way it's told."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Middle Passage is both unexpectedly funny and highly intellectual."--Washington Post

"Highly readable...by turns mimicking historical romance, slave narrative, picaresque tale, parable, and sea yarn, indebted to Swift, Coleridge, Melville, and Conrad."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

"A vivid and compelling work."--Essence

"A fascinating allegory of the way black and whites came together in this country...Johnson's remarkable novel challenges us."--USA Today

"A savage parable of the black experience in America...blending confessional, ship's log, and adventure...in luxuriant, intoxicating prose."--Publishers Weekly

"Middle Passage resonates...a spirited adventure tale daringly spun off the realm of myth."--Newsday

A Scribner Classics edition of Charles Johnson’s masterpiece, winner of the National Book Award—“a novel in the tradition ofBilly Budd and Moby-Dick...heroic in proportion...fiction that hooks the mind” (The New York Times Book Review).

It is 1830. Rutherford Calhoun, a newly freed slave and irrepressible rogue, is desperate to escape unscrupulous bill collectors and an impending marriage to a priggish schoolteacher. He jumps aboard the first boat leaving New Orleans, the Republic, a slave ship en route to collect members of a legendary African tribe, the Allmuseri. Thus begins a daring voyage of horror and self-discovery.

Peopled with vivid and unforgettable characters, nimble in its interplay of comedy and serious ideas, this dazzling modern classic is a perfect blend of the picaresque tale, historical romance, sea yarn, slave narrative, and philosophical novel.